OLD SONG AND NEW. 
 
 MARGARET J. PRESTON. 
 
 n 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO 
 
 1870. 
 

 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., 
 n the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 LIPPINCOTT 
 
 p H i L A D E L p*r$ 1 . 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 DAY-DUTY done, I ve idled forth to get 
 An hour s light pastime in the shady lanes, 
 And here and there have pluckt with careless pains, 
 
 These wayside waifs, sweet-brier and violet, 
 
 And such like simple things that seemed indeed 
 Flowers, though perhaps, I knew not flower from weed. 
 
 What shall I do with them? They find no place 
 In stately vases where magnolias give 
 Out sweets in which their faintness could not live : 
 
 Yet tied with grasses, posy-wise, for grace, 
 I have no heart to cast them quite away, 
 Though their brief bloom should not outlive the day. 
 
 Upon the open pages of your book, 
 
 I lay them down : And if within your eye 
 A little tender mist I may descry, 
 
 Or a sweet sunshine flicker in your look, 
 Right happy will I be, though all declare 
 No eye but love s could find a violet there. 
 
 M191887 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 FROM HEBREW STORY. 
 
 PACK 
 
 Ruth in the Land of Moab *5 
 
 The Daughter of the Gileadite 21 
 
 The Grief of Bathsheba 37 
 
 The Choice of Barzillai 4 
 
 Michal 44 
 
 The Royal Preacher 65 
 
 The Lament of Joab 69 
 
 The Writing of the King 7 2 
 
 FROM GREEK STORY. 
 
 Alcyone 77 
 
 Erinna s Spinning 85 
 
 The Flight of Arethusa 9 
 
 Rhodope s Sandal 94 
 
 The Quenched Brand 97 
 
 BALLAD AND OTHER VERSE. 
 
 The Lady Hildegarde s Wedding 109 
 
 Fra Angelico 1 14 
 
 7 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Nameless Pilgrim Il8 
 
 The Dumb Poet I2 3 
 
 The Baby s Message I2 7 
 
 Attainment 1 3 
 
 The Signal J 33 
 
 Unvisited J 37 
 
 An Alpine Picture *4O 
 
 The Color-Bearer H3 
 
 Nineteen !4 
 
 Wine on the Lees . ..., 1 5 r 
 
 A Year in Heaven 157 
 
 Afternoon 161 
 
 Poor Carlotta 164 
 
 The Complaint of Santa Glaus 167 
 
 Unreason 1 70 
 
 The Legend of Athelney 1 72 
 
 All s Well 178 
 
 The Scholar s Haunts 180 
 
 Under the Elms 184 
 
 Antonio Oriboni 187 
 
 Artist-Work 191 
 
 Left Behind 197 
 
 The Bells of Brienne 200 
 
 Proem 203 
 
 Little Jeanie s Sleep 205 
 
 The Unattained 207 
 
 The Hallowed Name 209 
 
 Dante in Exile 211 
 
 The Vision of the Snow 214 
 
 Out of the Shadow 217 
 
 The Difference . 220 
 
CONTENTS. 9 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Alone 222 
 
 Saint Cecilia 225 
 
 The Apostle of Truth 227 
 
 The Open Gate 229 
 
 The Resting- Place 232 
 
 The Rain-Drop s Fate 234 
 
 Rosalie 236 
 
 The Amulet 239 
 
 The Idle Lyre 240 
 
 Powers Proserpine 242 
 
 Life-Close 244 
 
 The By-Gone 246 
 
 In Pace 249 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 Equipoise 253 
 
 Saturday Night 254 
 
 Conviva Satur 255 
 
 The Morrow 256 
 
 Doubt 257 
 
 Ours 258 
 
 The Hyssop 259 
 
 Nature s Lesson 260 
 
 The Stirred Nest 261 
 
 The Reason 262 
 
 Undertow 263 
 
 If. 264 
 
 Patience 265 
 
 The Shadow 266 
 
 Failure 267 
 
 Non Dolet. ... .268 
 
io CONTENTS. 
 
 RELIGIOUS PIECES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Rabboni 271 
 
 The Child Jesus 278 
 
 Supper at Bethany 282 
 
 Even so, Father 285 
 
 The Search of the Sages 289 
 
 The Young Ruler s Question 293 
 
 Ready 300 
 
 The Two Mites 302 
 
 The Sympathy of Jesus 305 
 
 The Little Pilgrims 308 
 
 Temple-Service 311 
 
APOLOGY. 
 
 "WHAT right hast thou to chirp?" I asked a bird 
 Whose slender trill I caught among the trees, 
 Where thousands of full-throated harmonies 
 
 Pulsated on the undulant air, and stirred 
 
 The conscious forest-coverts, till I heard 
 
 The leaves kiss, in their gladness, while the breeze 
 Broadened its wings to waft the melodies 
 
 Far up the west. The twitterer, at my word, 
 
 Paused : (yet I missed no note :) " Within the vale 
 Are mates of mine," he piped " for whom the lark 
 
 Soars with a song too distant, yet who love 
 My quiet cooings in the leafy dark : 
 
 For them, not thee, I fill our nested grove ; 
 
 Keep thou thine ear for lark and nightingale !" 
 
 11 
 
FROM HEBREW STORY. 
 
RUTH IN THE LAND OF MOAB. 
 
 I SIT apart bereaven, 
 
 Under the ashen shadows slant, with eyes 
 Too utter sorrowful to lift to heaven 
 So cruel-bright. Along the path that lies 
 Betwixt the fields of barley, to and fro, 
 The merry, careless folk do come and go, 
 Noisy with harvest mirth, and I, so sad ! 
 
 I marvel, can it be 
 That ever I was light of heart or glad 
 As yonder maidens at the well I see 
 Filling their pitchers ? Woe, ah, woe is me ! 
 So bitter-sweet the memory of the day 
 We met beside the fountain, he and I, 
 And from my shoulder, or I framed reply, 
 He gat the urn, unheeding of my nay. 
 So long it seems, since I, as them, was gay, 
 
 15 
 
1 6 RUTH IN THE LAND OF MOAB. 
 
 Smiling at naught ! Now o er each water-jar, 
 Their veils thrown back, I watch them stoop to trace 
 
 Their comeliness of face, 
 And laugh with pride to mark how fair they are. 
 
 II. 
 
 Within the vineyards near 
 
 Shout the grape-gatherers, and amidst their cheer 
 Mingleth the hum of children, ah, the pain ! 
 No more the dances of the harvest-time, 
 No more for me the vintage, fill the plain : 
 My clusters all are mildewed in their prime, 
 My vine is clean uprooted ; sun and rain, 
 Sharp and sore bitter in their mockery now, 
 Can call the living blossoms from my bough 
 
 Never again ! 
 
 in. 
 
 I watch the browsing flocks upon the hills, 
 And question of myself, if I but dreamed 
 What time we twain along the wimpling rills 
 Went hand in hand, he whiles, rehearsing tales 
 Of his young, innocent age, until, meseemed, 
 It he o erlived in Judah s pleasant vales 
 Once more, a ruddy boy in Bethlehem, 
 Shepherding there his father s happy herds : 
 And as, attent, I hung upon his words, 
 
 Mindful alone of them, 
 
RUTH IN THE LAND OF MOAB. 17 
 
 As close and closer to his side I crept, 
 Half-unaware how marvellous-sweet it was, 
 
 Ceasing with sudden pause, 
 He oft-times lifted up his voice and wept, 
 Yea, wept by reason of the joy he had, 
 And fell in tender-wise upon my breast, 
 Making my heart, with loving speech, right glad : 
 Anon he raised a heavenward hand and blest 
 The God of Jacob for His judgments sent, 
 Good wrought of evil, out of death, fair life, 
 Famine and travail, loss and banishment, 
 
 That gave him me to wife. 
 
 Here on this wayside stone, 
 Alone as I had never been alone, 
 Had love not peopled these thrice-blessed years 
 With angels that made sweet the footed hours 
 Strewing the path I went, with thick-dropt flowers, 
 I sit astonied the harsh sackcloth spread 
 
 Above my widow d head, 
 
 And drink the wine and eat the bread of tears, 
 In utmost wrack and bitterness of mind 
 
 That I am left behind. 
 
1 8 RUTH IN THE LAND OF MO AS. 
 
 V. 
 
 I see the olives ripening as of old ; 
 
 The full-grown figs are yellowing in the sun; 
 
 The wheaten tassel deepens into gold, 
 
 And all is just the same 
 To yonder reapers when the day is done, 
 
 As if he went and came : 
 Who now doth weight the air with Chillion s name? 
 
 So must it be, even so ! 
 The over-jealous heart must yield, resigned 
 To know its dead forgotten, out of mind, 
 Must learn, through grievous hurt, to hide the throe 
 Of wounded tenderness. Yon virgin band 
 Slow loitering still beside the fountain s curb, 
 Heedless as if no spoiler could disturb 
 Their light enchantments, yet must feel the hand 
 Of doomed sorrow bow each head in turn ; 
 Therefore I drop no wormwood in their wine : 
 Enough, if through the strength vouchsafed, they learn 
 To bear whatso of ill their lots assign, 
 
 Unsharing aught of mine. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Albeit of my distress 
 
 Acquaintance take light note, yet I, indeed, 
 Grieve not therefor: tis no unkindly heed. 
 
 Only one life the less 
 
RUTH IN THE LAND OF MOAB. 19 
 
 Counted among the kinsfolk; from the field 
 One sower missed ; amidst the vintage-cheer, 
 One merry, lacking voice, this harvest year, 
 One arm the less the pruning-hook to wield, 
 
 And that is all, is all, 
 
 Even to the friends that clave unto him well : 
 For me . . . none other losses can befall : 
 With him apart, so had I learned to dwell, 
 Hedged in a world that only held us twain, 
 Little it mattereth what may hence remain 
 Within the smitten, desolate wilderness 
 
 Whereof that life the less 
 Made a Damascus garden for my soul. 
 O lost, lost love ! whose presence filled the whole 
 Of my full-laden life, what marvel, I, 
 Emptied of thee, do rend my heart and die ! 
 
 VII. 
 
 And yet, and yet, it hath no void, my soul : 
 It overflows as Jordan doth his marge 
 Wept flush by vernal floods that surge and roll, 
 Drowning the troubled pastures with surcharge 
 Of turbid waters. Empty? . . . Grief is strong 
 To overcrowd the spirit even as love, 
 Leaving no verge for aught in heaven above, 
 Or in the earth beneath, it doth not throng 
 With its devouring gloom. Yea even, meseems, 
 
20 RUTH IN THE LAND OF MOAB. 
 
 The aching piteousness I keep for her, 
 
 The sad-eyed mother from whose forehead beams 
 
 Such hopeless patience, only is the stir 
 
 Of my pathetic memories. She was his, 
 
 Of all, first kissed, first clung to. On her breast 
 
 The little head was nursed away to rest, 
 
 And therefore best I love her, therefore tis 
 
 I cleave to her, the sole-left, human thing 
 
 For whom I yet entice myself to brave 
 
 The sting of living. Haply I might bring 
 
 Some medicament the bruise d hurt to lave, 
 
 Some precious nard to soothe the lonely pain, 
 
 And reconcile her back to life again, 
 
 That desolate path through which she fares to them, 
 
 Husband and sons, a path behooven to be 
 
 Sad evermore. Now, empty-handed, she 
 
 Returns to Bethlehem : 
 O joyless exile, what a woe is thine ! 
 Can it out-mete the height and depth of mine? 
 Then love shall lift the burden of that woe ; 
 Whither thou goest, I will also go, 
 And where thou lodgest, there will I abide, 
 Thy people shall be mine, thy God, my guide, 
 Where thou dost die, there will I yield my breath, 
 And by thy side my burial-place shall be: 
 The Lord do so and more, if aught but death 
 
 Part thee and me ! 
 
THE DAUGHTER OF THE GILEADITE. 
 
 I. 
 
 THROUGH wage of war the pleasant land was waste ; 
 
 The youth of Israel, man by man, had fallen, 
 
 Till all the valorous Leaders of the Tribes 
 
 Were counted among the slain. The hoary heads 
 
 Melted away like snow on Sannin s top, 
 
 By south winds smitten: and deliverance grew 
 
 A paling hope, as wore the days away. 
 
 Yet one stern lesson had the evil taught : 
 Astarte could not save ; the priestly groves 
 Of Chemosh shrouded lying oracles ; 
 The mystic star of Chiun forebore to shine : 
 Yea, furthermore, when they had cried, one ear 
 Only had heard, one hand been stretcht to help; 
 And hence, in their sore straitness, they had turned 
 To seek in Urim and Thummim succor found 
 No other whither; and thenceforth they knew 
 The unimaged YAVEH for their one true God. 
 
 So came it then to pass that in their souls 
 Remembrance of the former time had place ; 
 
22 THE DAUGHTER OF THE GILEADITE. 
 
 And ancient men made known how Canaan s kings, 
 From western border of Zidon, to the marge 
 Of Jordan eastward, from the whiten d crest 
 Of Hermon, set against the northern sky, 
 To the far reach of sandy Arabah, 
 Trembled before the Lord of Hosts, and fled. 
 
 Among the Elders sat there men whose sires 
 
 Were of the brave Three Hundred, who went forth 
 
 With Gideon, when he brake upon the camp 
 
 Of sleeping Midianites, who spake and said, 
 
 Strengthening each other, "Wherefore should we fail 
 
 Of such deliverance now? What lets that we 
 
 Call home our banished, him we drave abroad, 
 
 Restore the alien to his father s house, 
 
 Right whom we wronged, and cancel thus the wrong 
 
 By gift of leadership, that so he break 
 
 The yoke of bondage wherewithal we groan?" 
 
 Forth sped the clamor through the Tribes encamped 
 At Mizpeh; "Call the banished home again!" 
 And ever and anon the cry arose, 
 Swelling and loudening with each day s acclaim, 
 "Bring home the alien, call the banished back!" 
 
 Then rose the Elders from the gates, and forth 
 They gat them over Jordan with their best, 
 
THE DAUGHTER OF THE GILEADITE. 23 
 
 Saying: "Come thou with us and be our Head; 
 Lead forth the Hosts, and take from this our hand 
 Due restitution for all wrong-doing past." 
 
 Then questioned Jephthah, counselling with his heart : 
 "And wherefore not? Do I not tire betimes 
 Of this wild Lebanon s so narrow bourne, 
 And sigh for seemlier spoil than beasts of prey, 
 And other abiding-place than cloven crags? 
 I would have sovran empiry of men, 
 I would have channel for the restless strength 
 That beats itself against these fastnesses : 
 And vengeance too, vengeance so utter-keen 
 As pierceth sharper than a two-edg d sword; 
 Vengeance that recompenseth years of wrong, 
 Not with forgiveness stint, that were too small ; 
 But of such lordly bearing as wreaks itself 
 In blessings on the wrong-doer ! I will save 
 The land that cast me out, a goodly land, 
 A land of ancient heroes, valorous men, 
 Land of my father s sepulchre, and of mine, 
 Yea, verily, as my soul doth live, of mine!" 
 
24 THE DAUGHTER OF THE GILEADITE. 
 
 II. 
 
 A thousand watch-fires shone on Mizpeh s slopes, 
 Where lay a mighty host of harness d men 
 Waiting the morrow s march. The new-risen moon 
 Above the city swam in silences 
 Of infinite depth that mocked the innumerous stir 
 And tumult of the hour. Behind close walls 
 That hedged a garden, where a fountain s lapse 
 O erbore the bruit of the uneasy camp, 
 And tempered the hot rush and tramp of feet 
 Along the ways, a maiden watched alone. 
 The air was rich with mingled spiceries, 
 Citron and aloe, and all dew-drench d sweets 
 That drowsed the night. Near by, a querulous dove, 
 Through broken dreams, made plaint, till restless 
 
 grown 
 
 Of bodeful echo to her own vext thought, 
 The maiden chiding turned, and heard the voice 
 Of him she had waited long, " Zanone f Thou!" 
 And she made haste to answer, and right glad, 
 The twain sat down beneath the cassia trees, 
 And wist not if the cushat cooed or no. 
 
 Anon she drew the javelin from its belt, 
 And loosed the helmet s band : "Behold," she said, 
 "Thy locks are moist as never Amana s dews 
 
THE DAUGHTER OF THE GILEADITE* 25 
 
 Wet them, when thou hast lain night-long a-top:" 
 And in her hollowed palms she bare cool water, 
 And laved his brow therewith ; he answering : 
 "Our life has purpose now to whet true toil, 
 That midst our rugged clefts it never knew; 
 And worthier aim than ravin of honeycombs, 
 Or branching antlers of the roe-buck slain, 
 Or leopard s spotted skin for warmth against 
 The biting hoar-frost" 
 
 "Yea," Zanone spake, 
 
 Smoothing her finger on the weapon s edge, 
 "This sharpen d javelin hath brave work in hand, 
 Its rightful end. Naught can it better essay 
 Than smite the heathen-folk that waste the land. 
 Such goodlier service have I craved for it, 
 Chafing against the woodcraft skill ; and now, 
 Sith that my wish hath answer fashioned to it 
 Above my hope, wherefore ask I for more? 
 And yet and yet, at whiles," 
 
 But Aran laid 
 
 A hushing hand across the tender mouth, 
 Saying "No word shall fill mine ear to-night 
 That is not freighted with a royal hope : 
 We needs must hoard all strengthening unguents up, 
 Wherewith to medicine heart-aches, while we shun 
 As baleful, every bitter herb of fear." 
 
26 THE DAUGHTER OF THE GILEADITE. 
 
 The maiden answered low: "If he be lost 
 Amid the chance of war, then what, to me, 
 Kinless, is left?" "What left?" ... and Aran spake 
 Wounded, "O, naught, naught left: for what am I, 
 Weighed in the balance of love, against a father ! 
 And from the light-girt waist the slacken d arm 
 Slid down. A troubled glance Zanone* cast 
 Upon the averted face, then sudden, sprang 
 Closer, and dropped her head upon his breast 
 And gave full way to a great gust of tears. 
 Whereat, (by reason of one little drop 
 That held a honeyed bitter in its sweet, 
 The wild-bee s sipping of the poison-cup,) 
 Came such a hurrying rush of passionate speech, 
 As heretofore, in her coy shamefastness, 
 She never had woven in words. And hearing it, 
 Aran could scarce repent him of his heat, 
 Seeing it wrought him largess, else unwon. 
 
 Then, after reconciliation had, 
 
 That made the love it quickened ten-fold sweeter, 
 "Never before," he said "saw I a fear 
 Whiten this cheek, or dim these steadfast eyes : 
 Or is it the blanching moon ? Thus, thus and thus 
 I challenge the ruby back ! Ha, now the glow, 
 Like the red lip of morn on Shenir s brow, 
 Chaseth the pallor hence. Lift thy dropt eyes, 
 
THE DAUGHTER OF THE GILEADITE. 27 
 
 Dark, mountain-pools, as Jabbok s with leave to 
 
 mark 
 
 If yet their shaken depths be smooth enow 
 To mirror a stooping face." Thus squandering 
 Their one last hour in prodigal iterance 
 Of love s dear phases and vicissitudes, 
 (The tireless story that grew never old, 
 Though uttered and uttered o er a thousand times,) 
 One hasted to them, saying, "Behold, my master 
 Would see his daughter ere he goeth hence." 
 
 They rose and followed. In the inner court 
 They found the Chief: and when at his command, 
 All had gone forth, Zanone* with swift step 
 Sprang to the arms that opened wide to her, 
 And fell upon the mailed breast, and wept. 
 
 And Jephthah spake: "Approach, my son, and thus 
 Receive, ye twain, a blessing from my hand:" 
 Whereat, before the mighty man they knelt, 
 The maiden and the youth, and in the name 
 Of Isaac s and Rebekah s God, he sought 
 For them a wedded life of joy and peace. 
 
28 THE DAUGHTER OF THE GILEADITE. 
 
 III. 
 
 The Hosts of Israel lay beside the fords 
 Of Jordan, tarrying for the embassies 
 That had gone forth to sue the Ammonite 
 With fair entreaty; and often as they sued, 
 Their message had been set at naught, till now 
 The people a-wearied of forbearance. Then, 
 And only then, (for largest-natured souls 
 Be ever most long-suffering,) did the Chief 
 Bid set the sacred standards forth, and fling 
 The blood-red banner abroad, by cunning hands 
 Of women broidered with the battle-call, 
 "The sword of Jephthah and of Gideon!" 
 
 But ere they dipt their feet within the flood, 
 
 They lifted up with one accord, their voice, 
 
 And called upon the name of Israel s God. 
 
 Before the altar ministered ancient priests, 
 
 Who prayed the Lord of Hosts to lead them forth, 
 
 Scatter the heathen, break their bow of strength, 
 
 And give the victory. Jephthah heard, deep-moved ; 
 
 A holy jealousy wrought in his soul ; 
 
 The in-bred loyalty of long-gone years 
 
 Brake through the barriers exile heaped erewhile, 
 
 A headlong torrent, that swept clean away 
 
 All wreck of bitterness, all choking gorge 
 
THE DAUGHTER OF THE GILEADITE. 29 
 
 Thitherward tided by the surging past, 
 And in the tumult of his hurrying zeal, 
 With his right hand up-lift before the Lord 
 He sware : 
 
 "If Thou deliver our enemies 
 Up to my sword until they be destroyed, 
 Even to the uttermost, then shall it be 
 That whatsoever cometh from my doors 
 To meet me, when I do return in peace, 
 Shall be a whole burnt-offering to the Lord." 
 
 Up rose the solemn smoke of sacrifice, 
 Bearing, with rich frankincense consecrate, 
 The vow to heaven. The mitred priests bent low; 
 The people shouted with the clash of arms, 
 Amen, Amen! So let it be!" 
 
 IV. 
 
 Strange mirth 
 
 Once more went smiling through the long-waste land ; 
 And hearts that scarce had ever known a joy, 
 Lifted, as lifts the heavy-headed grain 
 
30 THE DAUGHTER OF THE GILEADITE. 
 
 At tidings of the coming of the wind. 
 
 The ancient men for whom all hope had ashened 
 
 Into the piteousness of gray despair 
 
 That nursed no ember of better days to be, 
 
 Through gladness rent their garments : For had not 
 
 God 
 
 In very deed made bare His mighty arm, 
 And given the evil haters of His name 
 Into- His servant s hand? 
 
 The wide-spread plains 
 
 Of Ammon ran with slaughter : Twenty towns 
 Unbarred their gates before the conqueror: 
 Rabbah had fallen : the " City of the Waters," 
 Minnith was taken; widow d Aroer 
 Sat desolate, because her sons were slain. 
 
 With songs of triumph, trumpets braying loud, 
 
 Victorious standards borne aloft, sheath d swords 
 
 Girt on their thighs, hackt bucklers loosened off, 
 
 And heads unhelmeted, the avenging hosts 
 
 Stood on the Jordan s nether shore again, 
 
 And all, as with strong wine, were drunk with joy. 
 
 Now might the fields their seeded increase yield, 
 
 The reaper bind his sheaves, safe-girt from harm, 
 
 The vineyard-clusters ripen as of old, 
 
 And merry tumult fill the olive -groves 
 
 Once more : For all the land had rest from war. 
 
THE DAUGHTER OF THE GILEADITE. 31 
 
 Along the march forth came the Hebrew women 
 
 With solemn dances and ascriptive praise. 
 
 And wilder, as the leagues still lessened, grew 
 
 The gladsomeness, till even the piney hills 
 
 Were moved to laughter, and the trees clapt hands. 
 
 Mizpeh f The Lord hath watched betwixt his own, 
 
 And brought us back in peace:" and Aran sought 
 
 The eye of Jephthah, as who should reply ; 
 
 But Jephthah answered not, nor lifted up 
 
 His face to welcome Mizpeh s towers that shone 
 
 Fair on the horizon s edge. When lo ! a clash 
 
 Of timbrels swam athwart the grassy slopes, 
 
 And silvery voices rose and fell and died ; 
 
 Then clearer, nearer swelled most jubilant 
 
 With question and response. 
 
 ... A quick white flutter 
 
 Of womanly vesture, eager arms outstretcht, 
 Unfilleted locks against his breastplate flung, 
 Wide eyes, whereof the heaven was dashed with 
 
 tears, 
 
 Pale-parted lips struck dumb through rush of bliss, 
 He saw, he knew, and from the stricken heart 
 Of the stout mailed warrior, burst there forth 
 A mighty and exceeding bitter cry; 
 My child ! My daughter ! Woe is me my child / 
 
32 THE DAUGHTER OF THE GILEADITE. 
 
 V. 
 
 "She doth not ask, my lamb of sacrifice, 
 She will not suffer remission of my vow : 
 And I, Yea, I have sworn before the Lord, 
 And who may disannul ? O hateful pride ! 
 Maddest ambition ! most accursed greed, 
 That thought to bribe Heaven thus, and so to be 
 Accepted thus ! Would God that I had died 
 An alien, seeing my native land no more ! 
 Would God, some bow, at venture drawn, had slain 
 
 me, 
 And I had never beholden her face again ! 
 
 "My tender dove, my one sweet comforter, 
 Laid youngling on mine empty heart, that else 
 Had crazed and broken itself above my dead ! 
 And day-long, how she close and closer crept 
 Into the darken d, shivering, frozen void, 
 Till it waxed warm, anon, with human love ! 
 How hath she cheered my cruel banishment, 
 Mossed the sharp flints with soft observances, 
 Made of my goat-skin tent a pastoral home, 
 Soothed when I chode, and kept within my soul 
 The wholesome fear of God ! How did her wiles 
 Cheat me of ruth, and win me oft aside 
 From vengeful aims and angry discontents; 
 And this, ah, woe ! is this the end of all ? 
 
THE DAUGHTER OF THE GILEADITE. 33 
 
 " Zanone", my one child! I thought to see 
 Thee stand at Aran s side, an honored wife, 
 To lift my head and proudly say, My son! 
 And count the easeful, happy years go by, 
 When thy fair boys, like oaks on Lebanon, 
 Should overtop thy height, alas, the day ! 
 The strong man s arm is as a stubble-stalk, 
 And his stout will, as a bowed bulrush, yields. 
 My spirit is smitten: How can I give thee up, 
 My beautiful ? Thou God of Abraham, 
 Wilt Thou naught else ? Is there none other victim ? 
 No hallowed firstling on whose innocent head 
 I dare devolve my vow, and hear Thee say, 
 Lo I accept thy ransom ? Thou art strong, 
 And I am weak: O, woe is me! my child!" 
 
 VI. 
 
 The weeks of wail had worn unto their verge ; 
 And now within a grove of cypress glooms, 
 Apart from the companions of her woe, 
 Zanone stood, fixed and white, fast held 
 With stress of agony in Aran s arms. 
 
34 THE DAUGHTER OF THE GILEADITE. 
 
 The sun athwart them shed his setting gleams, 
 Red as the sacrificial flame ; his gleams 
 Whose latest must mark their hour of parting come. 
 By reason of anguish was the youth s strong frame 
 Shrunken; his tongue essayed delirious words, 
 Wild, void of meaning and direful. But for her, 
 The vestal in her consecrated calm, 
 Over whose soul the swallowing sea had gone 
 And left her wrecked of all, save awestruck faith 
 And love that overleaps the grave, the strife 
 Was ended. On her straitened lips, a smile 
 Saintly as death s, lingered as loth to go : 
 Light, strange, ineffable, shone in her eyes 
 Like the Shekinah s glory; and her words 
 Came loftily, with firm, unbroken voice, 
 As Miriam s song on the red shore of triumph. 
 "Now we let go for ever earthly hands, 
 Now tear our twined souls apart, and hence 
 Look to the meeting in the Canaan yonder ! 
 O love, make sure of this: Dost thou not know 
 That fatherly pity filleth the Highest s heart? 
 Then learn it from me : In silence of the night, 
 Among the reaches of these mournful vales, 
 A spirit bare inward to my listening sense 
 This heaven-sent truth: Ye do not part for aye: 
 By it I hold for solace in my woe : 
 Do thou likewise the same. Cling to that faith, 
 
THE DAUGHTER OF THE GILEAD1TE. 35 
 
 Bind it, beseech thee, o er the fiery pain 
 That else will burn thy tender heart to ashes. 
 
 "And now my soul doth lift itself to bless 
 Thy crowning love, love that hath given to me 
 Sovereignty dearer than a sceptred queen s. 
 
 strangest, sweetest love ! O bitterest love ! 
 . I die to think on it : no more, no more ! 
 
 No backward look ! Yet know thou, for a truth, 
 
 That in my Holy of Holies, Memory 
 
 Hath laid up in her golden manna-pot 
 
 Our earthly loves, unwasting, pure for ever ! 
 
 "I dare not weep: I find no place for tears: 
 
 1 am the accepted sacrifice to God, 
 Devoted, set apart henceforth to Him. 
 Promoted to such honor, who am I 
 To murmur at the costly offering? 
 
 I save my country: Thou would st dare the death 
 Yea, thou hast dared it, facing of the foe, 
 For such a reason full oft. My poor, lost name ! 
 Let it not perish out of Israel : 
 But when the land is rich in peaceful homes, 
 And blessedness of husband, wife and child, 
 Would they might keep some mindfulness of one 
 Whose hopes were all foregone ! Would they might 
 teach, 
 
36 THE DAUGHTER OF THE GILEADITE. 
 
 These happy mothers teach their little ones, 
 
 With pitiful lips to say it, Poor Zanone / 
 
 And O my father ! But thou wilt be both, 
 
 Daughter and son to him, yea, twain in one ; 
 
 The strength, the will to shield, that shall be thine, 
 
 The watchfulness of unforgetting love 
 
 That never sleeps, that shall be mine, through thee. 
 
 "Behold, behold! The latest reddening ray 
 Ashens behind yon Gileaditish hills, 
 Those peaceful, peaceful hills ! O love, my love ! 
 So ! ... let me crowd the travail of my soul 
 Into this kiss, divinest of my life ; 
 And kneel thou, while I lay on thy dear head 
 Once more my hands, this once, once more and 
 
 pray: 
 
 Jehovah bless and keep thee : The Lord God 
 Be very gracious unto thee, lift up 
 On thee His glorious countenance, Beloved, 
 And give thee peace." 
 
THE GRIEF OF BATHSHEBA. 
 
 i. 
 
 MY little one, my innocent nursing child, 
 That wottest not of evil ! that hast been 
 Thy mother s one requital in her sin, 
 Making it tolerable, my undefiled, 
 Must thou die for me ? O my God, my God ! 
 Since mine the trespass, mine the suffering too ! 
 
 Lay Thou Thy rod 
 
 Of righteous scourging on my guilty flesh, 
 Till my transgression tortures me anew, 
 And all my half-healed wounds do bleed afresh : 
 But spare, Thou Just One! spare this guiltless lamb 
 Who crazeth me with his perplexed eyes, 
 That question,-" Wherefore thus?" Behold, /am 
 Sole cause and sore, my spotless sacrifice ! 
 
 ii. 
 
 The same, ah me ! the same, 
 That piteous, helpless, mute-appealing look, 
 That oft hath sent a shudder through my frame, 
 When to the brazen altar-foot I took 
 
 4 37 
 
38 THE GRIEF OF BATHSHEBA. 
 
 A kid for my oblation. Can I lay 
 Naught on that altar now that will suffice? 
 Are flocks of Kedar vain to wash away 
 The shame I weep for? Is there other price 
 Wherewith my soul may purchase its release, 
 
 And go in peace, 
 Cleansed, pardoned and accepted, O Most High? 
 
 Or must I bring 
 
 This one-year suckling as sin-offering? 
 Nay, then, far rather, dying, let me die ! 
 
 in. 
 
 How could I dare 
 To lift in Paradise, mine eyes to his, 
 If he, mine unoffending one, were ware 
 That she who held God s place to him, through this 
 Her bitter wrong, had robbed him of the throne, 
 My princely child, that else had been his own? 
 
 IV. 
 
 If I might only die 
 
 In thy soul s stead, and thou, unhurt go free ! 
 O prayer, how vain ! the lot hath fallen on thee : 
 Yet might the grief be borne, methinks, if I 
 Could hear thy wordless tongue once frame "forgiven:" 
 
THE GRIEF OF BATHSHEBA. 39 
 
 But if not here, not here, 
 It falleth ever on mine aching ear, 
 Speak that word, first of all, to me in heaven ! 
 
 v. 
 
 Mine innocent, baby-child, 
 It grieves thy lip to mark my look of woe : 
 Thou canst not know it here, thou need st not know 
 Wherefore thy mother s mouth so seldom smiled. 
 She knew thou wast but lent ; that word was sure : 
 And never across thy rounded cheek hath passed 
 An ivory pallor, though it might endure 
 The fleetest moment, but a molten fear 
 Caught at her heart, "the hour the hour, at last!" 
 Yet when I looked not for it, it was here ; 
 
 Yea it is here ! Behold . . . 
 His fingers tighten . . . See, I cannot wring 
 Mine from their clasp ; his forehead is a-cold, 
 
 The King, haste, fetch the King ! 
 
THE CHOICE OF BARZILLAI. 
 
 i. 
 
 Now blessed be for evermore 
 
 The God of Jacob, who hath turned 
 Aside the jealous wrath that burned 
 
 Against our Lord the King, and o er 
 
 The plotters of his fall hath poured 
 His awful vengeance like a flame 
 Of all-devouring fire ; His name 
 
 Who wrought deliverance, be adored ! 
 
 ii. 
 But humble with no gifts reward, 
 
 Thy servant for light favor lent, 
 
 In this the grievous banishment 
 Wherewith the abjects vex my lord. 
 I did but offer bread and wine, 
 And slaughtered sheep and milk of kine, 
 
 Of my abundance, to the host 
 Fainting for lack of meat. Bestow, 
 
 Beseech thee, that I crave the most, 
 Thy royal blessing ere thou go. 
 
 -to 
 
THE CHOICE OF BARZILLAL 41 
 
 III. 
 Nor seek not I should turn aside 
 
 From these my fathers ancient fields, 
 
 The land that store of plenty yields, 
 The pastures where my flocks abide, 
 The jagged rocks along whose edge 
 
 My youth hath chased the wild-goat oft, 
 These vales within whose reedy sedge 
 
 I ve heard the turtle cooing soft: 
 
 IV. 
 
 The tents where dear my kindred dwell, 
 
 The brook whereof athirst I drank, 
 
 And made my bed upon its bank; 
 The coolness of yon shaded well, 
 
 Where, at the noontide s waxing hot, 
 We drave the herds for watering; 
 It seemeth but a little thing, 
 
 Yet, good my Lord, entreat me not ! 
 
 v. 
 Thy servant hath no heart to cross 
 
 This Jordan ; brief and evil be 
 
 The days laid up in store for me, 
 And what account were gain or loss? 
 Life weareth to its bourne, and I, 
 
 Infirm of step, beset by fears, 
 
42 THE CHOICE OF BARZILLAL 
 
 And with the weight of fourscore years 
 Burdened and bent, draw near to die. 
 
 VI. 
 
 To senses that be dulled or dead, 
 Or can discern nor good nor ill, 
 Though fair I know my Gilead still, 
 
 Doth aught avail of fairness spread? 
 
 What now to me the dainty meats? 
 What Mahaniii m s choicest wine, 
 Or baskets heaped from Sibmah s vine, 
 
 Or far Rogelim s gathered sweets? 
 
 VII. 
 
 Within the porches of mine ear, 
 
 The voice of singing-women throngs 
 Confusedly. Even though I trod 
 
 The sacred courts, and stood a-near 
 "Within the holy hill of God, 
 The altar services, the songs, 
 
 The chanting priests I should not hear. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Then let thy servant find, I pray, 
 
 Grace in thy sight, nor seek to bring 
 A burdening charge upon the King, 
 
 And get thou on thy royal way. 
 
THE CHOICE OF BARZILLAI. 43 
 
 Among my kindred have I dwelt, 
 
 Among my kindred would I die, 
 
 With ancient neighbors waiting nigh, 
 Whose heart with year-long grief will melt. 
 My people s sepulchres I crave 
 
 For burial-place : I would be laid 
 
 By the lign-aloe trees that shade 
 My father s and my mother s grave. 
 
MICHAL. 
 
 I. 
 
 NAAMAH. 
 
 Sweet Princess, shadows on thy brow again? 
 We, thy companions, sigh to see thee sad. 
 
 MICHAL. 
 
 Have I not reason? Mark yon purple blot 
 Of darkness dropt upon the summer blue 
 Of Ephraim s peak; thereby thou well mayst know, 
 Sparing an upward look, that overhead 
 Drifteth a cloud. Even so upon my spirit 
 Lieth the blotting shadow. Thou hast heard, 
 
 NAAMAH. 
 
 Yea, somewhat: but beseech thee, stay thy heart; 
 As heretofore, the daemon will pass away. 
 
 MICHAL. 
 Would I dare venture where he broods withdrawn, 
 
 44 
 
MICHAL. 45 
 
 Amazed and dumb, within the shuddering dark, 
 And make him know the touch of helpful hands, 
 And speak some word for soothing, my dear father ! 
 
 NAAMAH. 
 
 It were not best; pray thee put by the thought: 
 For stouter hearts than thine have shrunk to mark 
 The inward throes by which his strength is shorn. 
 
 MICHAL. 
 
 He beareth all the people on his heart, 
 And needs must stagger with the mighty weight : 
 The coil of sovereignty doth bind his brows 
 So straitly they are crazed ; for I do hold 
 No memory of such evil moods what time 
 We dwelt in pastoral peace among the hills. 
 
 NAAMAH. 
 
 What marvel war hath overwrought him thus? 
 The hungriest lion on Bethalga s steep 
 Crouching to watch the folds, were sportive prey 
 Beside this Zobah and these heathen Kings, 
 And all the swarming Children of the East. 
 Yet better so than the obscure estate, 
 The grapple with the fiend, so power be in it, 
 Than levels of sultry calm. Thinks t thou not so? 
 
46 MIC HAL. 
 
 MlCHAL. 
 
 Nay, verily ! For oft at sunset-tide, 
 
 When maidens, poising on their happy heads 
 
 Their baskets reddened with the bleeding grapes, 
 
 Come trooping home; or when at dawn I catch 
 
 The early whistle of the harvest-lads 
 
 Among the barley-swathes, how the old times 
 
 With longing seize me, and I pine to reave 
 
 Aside these gauds that overmuch oppress, 
 
 And be that blithest of human things, a child ! 
 
 Such joy it was to dance with all the rest, 
 
 No dignities disallowing, midst the vines ; 
 
 To frolic with the kids at folding-time, 
 
 To tumble the stretcht linen s bleaching webs, 
 
 Or with my brothers shred the olives down, 
 
 Or follow where the shepherds led the flock 
 
 To browse upon the aftermath. No songs, 
 
 No laughter now, no mirthfulness, methinks, 
 
 Rings with a tittle of the dizzy joy 
 
 My childhood knew. And yet I own, withal, 
 
 Amends, marking my father s topping height 
 
 As royally tower amid the Tribes as ever 
 
 Aforetime in our little Benjamin : 
 
 Albeit for love of him, my soul is sad. 
 
 One told how minstrelsy had chased his gloom ; 
 
 Whence came the singer? 
 
MIC HAL. 47 
 
 NAAMAH. 
 
 He is one of those 
 
 Searched out for his good gifts, by the lord Abner; 
 Well skilled to twist the melodies perplext 
 Among the harp-strings, into fibrous chants 
 That draw men s souls out 
 
 MICHAL. 
 
 Would he held the power 
 To bid the spirit of evil shrink abashed, 
 As ghosts at touch of dawn : 
 
 NAAMAH. 
 Ay, verily, 
 Tis said he hath such charm 
 
 MICHAL. 
 
 As spirits obey? 
 
 A spell to fright the fiend? O better far 
 Than rarest skill of shepherd s reedy craft ! 
 
 NAAMAH. 
 
 Yea, both are his, the strength, the sweetness also. 
 Would that thy listening ear, three days agone, 
 Had heard the Virgin-song, the Alamoth/ 
 Whose fluty richness ravishes the sense 
 Like quick, thick bird-notes dropt straight out of heaven ! 
 
4 MIC HAL. 
 
 Or that devout and holy cantillation 
 That caused the thunder-rack on the King s brow 
 To empty itself in tears, whereof the flow 
 Made all his shriveling powers up-lift 
 
 MICHAL. 
 
 Thou, then 
 Hast heard the stripling? 
 
 NAAMAH. 
 
 Stripling ! he is tall 
 
 Even as thy princely brother, and his face 
 Hath the clear splendor of the breaking morn. 
 Methinks amid the youths of Israel, 
 For comeliness, no form can mate with his; 
 And in his sheathed eye is covert fire, 
 That only waits the breath of sacred song, 
 To make it gleam as Samuel s, when at Ramah 
 He prophesies before the Oracle. 
 
 MICHAL. 
 
 Thy over-praise hath stirred a wish to know 
 Whence comes the secret of this marvelous player. 
 
 NAAMAH. 
 
 And wherefore not? It may be easy compassed : 
 Behind the curtains thou mayst sit unseen, 
 
MIC HAL. 49 
 
 And so make proof, when next the King doth call him, 
 Even for thyself, of this his mastership. 
 
 II. 
 
 SAUL. 
 
 Not yet, my soul not yet hath clean escaped 
 The pangs wherewith the fiend hath holden me clutched 
 Abner, attest me, witness that my spirit 
 Never hath cowered before a mortal foe; 
 Of old thou so hast often proven it 
 
 ABNER. 
 Yea, 
 
 My Lord, O King ; the arm of Joshua struck 
 None mightier blows at Ajalon than thine 
 Hath dealt to Amalek till he is destroyed. 
 What canst thou more? Thy latest enemy 
 Yields, vanquished now. 
 
 SAUL. 
 
 The latest? nay, the latest 
 Here in my breast wageth such perilous strife 
 That I am shamed, and crave thy testimony 
 That not the terrible hordes of Philistines 
 Stinging like madden d bees, prevailed against me 
 
50 MICHAL. 
 
 As thou hast seen the speechless terror prevail 
 What time the abhorred daemon buffeted. 
 
 ABNER. 
 
 My Lord, thou ever hast gotten the victory; 
 And even now the look of kingship comes 
 Back to thy brow, just as aforetime. 
 
 SAUL. 
 Nay 
 
 This loathed gloom it hangs about my strength 
 And drags me down, as once on shaggy Seir 
 A lion s whelp sprang on me from his lair, 
 Amid so swart a darkness J. could find 
 Naught of the weapons ungirded from my side. 
 Would God twere only as a lion s whelp ! 
 My boasted strength ! Behold this shrunken arm, 
 That once could dent the seven-fold bossed shield, 
 Or snap a bundle of ashen spears like straw, 
 Or hold the unbridled colt in wildest plunge, 
 Behold it now with unaverted face. 
 But nay, I scorn thy pity. O, my friend, 
 Thou darest not pity ! And yet the man who never 
 Before stark flesh hath quailed, whose steel-like thews 
 Have craved the joy of peril, may unashamed 
 Shiver when spirits do brave him. 
 
MICHAL. 51 
 
 ABNER. 
 Pray thee bid 
 
 Into thy presence, O King, the youth whose song 
 At other times hath wrought deliverance 
 When thou wert vext and sore distraught of soul. 
 
 SAUL. 
 
 The lad whose hale, wind-brighten d face hath in it 
 The morning crispness of Mount Ephraim? 
 Nay ... As thou wilt ... I care not: what avails? 
 
 DAVID ENTERS. 
 
 Look ye, I am o erworn, ready to perish 
 For lack of that thou keepest a surfeit of, 
 Heart-quiet, untroubled peace: Boy, at thy peril, 
 Rant not of battle-fields, nor warriors shouts, 
 Nor aught that hints the turbulence of life : 
 Away with these ! Give me some cricket-chirp, 
 Or creak of wain, or beat of busy flail, 
 Aught that will deaden the viper s hiss: dost hear? 
 
 DAVID SINGS. 
 
 i. 
 Mine eyes I will lift to the hills 
 
 Whence cometh mine aid ; 
 The Lord all my counsel fulfils, 
 
 Who the earth and the heavens hath made. 
 
52 MIC HAL. 
 
 II. 
 
 No whither thy footsteps shall go 
 
 But still He will keep; 
 The watcher of Israel, lo ! 
 
 He neither shall slumber nor sleep. 
 
 in. 
 The Lord is thy shade is thy stay, 
 
 On thy left hand, thy right; 
 The sun shall not smite thee by day, 
 The moon shall not hurt thee by night. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Lord shall preserve thee from ill, 
 
 Thy comforts restore: 
 Out-going and in-coming, He will 
 Uphold thee henceforth evermore ! 
 
 SAUL. 
 
 Hath the boy magic hidden in his touch? 
 Abner, the reaching voice, like a cool hand. 
 Gropes through the smothering darkness, feels for mine, 
 And leads me back, back to the bleat of lambs, 
 And lowing herds among the thymy hills; 
 The beautiful hills from whence doth come mine aid ! 
 Ha, the air clears : I draw free breath again, 
 
MIC HAL. 53 
 
 As if I clomb some farthest misty peak, 
 
 And gazed sheer downward to the Hinder Sea: 
 
 My- happy hills ! my calm, perpetual hills ! 
 
 Lo, the old fervor surges through my soul; 
 
 I am the Lord s anointed : Verily, 
 
 As my soul liveth, I do feel the might 
 
 That took my spirit, whenas at Tabor s foot 
 
 I felt the prophet s in-breathed mystery. 
 
 Haste, bid my servants bring my mightiest sword 
 
 Glittering and sharp, and gird it on my thigh : 
 
 Over my shoulders lay the lordly robe 
 
 And let me walk abroad in sight of men, 
 
 And make them know me for a King once more ! 
 
 III. 
 
 MlCHAL. 
 
 Comely to see; ay, she did speak true words, 
 The garrulous girl ; for never in Benjamin 
 Saw I his mate for stately-statured grace : 
 That up-lift brow, white as a cygnet s breast; 
 That stag-like mien, erect before the King 
 As he were royal too; that tameless port, 
 So unafraid, yet sweet with courteousness 
 
 5 * 
 
54 MICHAL. 
 
 Born only of courts : How could I deem him bred 
 
 Obscure among the sheep-cotes ? Ah, my pride ! 
 
 He might make answer, Have thou care, my princess, 
 
 Or ere I challenge thy count of dynasties 
 
 That lose their reckoning in the far-off Kish ! 
 
 Merab, my sister, did she hear my taunt, 
 
 Would frown reproof on such disloyalty. 
 
 To her, the state : to me the memories, 
 
 The simple memories, of my simple life, 
 
 Of conies hunted in the new-reaped fields, 
 
 Of gamesome hidings on the threshing-floors, 
 
 And all the pleasance of the harvest-feast : 
 
 O joys too full ! beyond a princess reach ! 
 
 Those tender canticles ! Their breath is sweet 
 
 As odors of the evening-sacrifice : 
 
 They bore me up, as when the Prophet s voice 
 
 Before the door-place of the Tabernacle 
 
 Uttereth the solemn benediction. Yet 
 
 This voice that hath a lapse as Kishon s flow, 
 
 And whisperings softer than Beth-nimrah s reeds, 
 
 Hides slumbering mastery in its unused power. 
 
 The peaceful shepherd s staff and scrip . . . Go to ! 
 
 Helmet and spear and shield for such as he ! 
 
 The King doth love him; he will come to honor; 
 
 Naught lacketh he save opportunity; 
 
 And opportunity, to noble souls, 
 
MIC HAL. 55 
 
 Is but fair leave to flower the golden core 
 
 Of nature out ; and peradventure such 
 
 The shiftings of these troublous times may fetch him. 
 
 IV. 
 
 NAAMAH. 
 
 Who goeth forth, so runneth the proclamation, 
 To meet this Canaan itish champion, 
 And in the fateful combat overcomes, 
 Shall have to wife the daughter of the King, 
 His eldest born 
 
 MICHAL. 
 
 O, bless thee for the word, 
 His eldest! Joy I pray it bear my sister, 
 If haply one among the valiantest 
 Of Heads of Tribes in Judah dares the proof 
 For getting of such guerdon. 
 
 NAAMAH. 
 Nay, I wot of 
 Some fairer-faced, of whom the approving smile 
 
56 MICHAL. 
 
 Should be the tempting crown held forth to bind 
 Right fittingly the brows of high endeavor. 
 
 MICHAL. 
 
 An archer s lure ! I tell thee I hold my state 
 A sanctuary, not a guardless target set 
 Whereby to wage and measure trial of skill. 
 Commend my sister to the feathered chance, 
 And God forfend, no son of Belial win, 
 As well may hap, out-arrowing all the Princes ! 
 For who that farthest tracks the ravening wolves, 
 (Nurtured in danger on rough mountain-sides) 
 The hunter of the iron hand and heart, 
 Why seest thou not how such may bear away 
 The lily-wreath upon his spear s point, rather 
 Than one of the great lords ? Out on the bribe ! 
 Tis all unworthy of my noble father. 
 
 NAAMAH. 
 
 Beseech thee grace ; and yet, meseems, thou ratest 
 Too low the prowess of our royal Tribes, 
 Matching their well-proven nobleness against 
 Such bulls of Bashan. Think st thou not, defiance 
 Like this must needs arouse the princeliest 
 And fire their souls with wrathful emulation ? 
 Only fine natures nurse the great resolve, 
 And dare all peril for safety of the right. 
 
MIC HAL. 57 
 
 That chrysopras upon thy jewel d wrist, 
 
 On its clear surface holds the signet fast, 
 
 Which never Egyptian lapidary cut, 
 
 With all his craft, thus sharp on common amber. 
 
 The tallest palms bear ever the delicate dates : 
 
 Fruited pomegranates stand, the brambles crawl. 
 
 MICHAL. 
 
 Well, be she free, my sister, free to risk 
 Signet of amber, or wild tamarisks ; 
 No let would I, if it content her so. 
 
 NAAMAH. 
 
 Yet hands there be that thrid at need the harp, 
 Can also draw the arrow to its head 
 With cunning aim; and there be tongues, moreover, 
 That seem but moved to praise the Lord withal, 
 Can nevertheless shriek out the battle-cry 
 Madly as any. 
 
 MICHAL. 
 
 I would thy jestings ceased : 
 Such idle parlance mated with the times 
 We plucked the reddened berries in the vales, 
 Holding one basket : Now thou dost companion 
 A Princess: Nay, I meant no hurt, Naamah; 
 Perchance I did invite thy frowardness : 
 
58 MICHAL. 
 
 Let pass . . . Beshrew, nathless, the hap thou tellest, 
 
 That calleth the minstrel from the court away, 
 
 Leaving some stripling Benjamite to be 
 
 King s armor-bearer, when the hour is ripe 
 
 And waits the action s gathering of it ... Not so, 
 
 Not as the champion of the Tribes : yet haply, 
 
 Scope had been found for some exalted deed, 
 
 Herald of such achievement as may win 
 
 Glory for Israel in the future days. 
 
 Say st thou his father summoned? Then did he well 
 
 To go, and win the blessing of obedience. 
 
 V. 
 
 SINGING WOMEN. 
 
 i. 
 
 Praise ye the Lord most High 
 With voice of psalms; 
 
 Let incense cloud the sky, 
 And smoke of lambs : 
 
 Let the green earth reply 
 With waving palms ! 
 
MICHAL: 59 
 
 II. 
 
 Daughters of Zorah, bow 
 
 In anguish sore : 
 Fair Gerar, wrap thy brow 
 
 With sackcloth o er: 
 Thy warriors, Ekron, thou 
 
 Shalt greet no more ! 
 
 in. 
 
 Low lieth thy mighty boast, 
 
 The vultures prey: 
 Thy heaven-defying host 
 
 Our God doth slay, 
 And to their utmost coast 
 
 Drive clean away. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Let cymbals clang again 
 
 With glad accord ; 
 Saul hath his thousands slain; 
 
 David s ten thousands stain 
 With slaughter hill and plain, 
 
 High sound the loud Amen ; 
 Praise ye the Lord ! 
 
60 MICHAL. 
 
 ATTENDANT. 
 
 Hearken, sweet Princess ! From the casement lean, 
 
 And thou may st catch the joyful chants of women, 
 
 The clash of tabrets and the shriek of pipes, 
 
 The acclamation, Hear it, hear it now ! 
 
 They praise the son of Jesse, even he 
 
 That turned the battle : Saul hath slain his thousands, 
 
 David his tens of thousands 
 
 MICHAL. 
 
 Yea, enow, 
 Hence, all of ye ! I hear it best alone. 
 
 [Attendants Depart. 
 
 My heart, my heart ! That she should win the prize 
 
 Reckoned such evil augury, to her thought ! 
 
 O, what to her the breathing melodies 
 
 At eventide? the holy Sabbath psalms? 
 
 The solemn ecstasy of Paschal-Feasts? 
 
 What those divinest pantings of a love 
 
 That breaks itself upon the strings, that so 
 
 They moan disconsolate, as with human wail? 
 
 She courts oblivion of her lineage low, 
 
 And holds her state as queenly-wise as though 
 
 She were the daughter of a score of Kings. 
 
 And now, why she will curse her lot, and chafe 
 
 To call to mind the pebbles and the sling, 
 
MICHAL. 6l 
 
 Hints of the base condition of her lord. 
 
 By gracious serviceableness that hideth power, 
 
 She will not strive to win resistless way, 
 
 Sweet of the winning, to that pathetic soul, 
 
 And deal out solace at need. . . Thou God in heaven ! 
 
 Is this far world so little in Thy sight, 
 
 And mak st Thou of Thy creatures such small account, 
 
 Thou dost regard not how all goeth awry? 
 
 Should he as son-in-law unto the King, 
 
 Make commerce of his affluent circumstance, 
 
 And get him power, not for his sake, not his, 
 
 Will be the vantage prized ; but that she thus 
 
 May balsam her fretted heart. I I, meanwhile . . . 
 
 But peace, thou puling soul ! Bethink thyself, 
 
 And emulate the pride thou darest decry : 
 
 Stand up, King s daughter ! At the least, be strong 
 
 Enow to hold in stately fealty 
 
 These traitorous discontents that verily 
 
 Do even imperil woman more than princess. 
 
62 MIC HAL. 
 
 VI. 
 
 DAVID. 
 
 From mine own mouth the King thy father, learned it 
 And answer made he quick, as though the thought 
 Had not been alien to his royal mind. 
 Since for thy sister, he chooseth otherwise, 
 Blessed be God therefor, for evermore ! 
 Yet not through wanton vanity, nor to fill 
 All ears in Israel with my nameless name, 
 And so uplift upon a deed s renown 
 My father s house in Judah, not to dare 
 Service for mine anointed King for thrall 
 Only of service ; nor through appetence 
 Of an allegiance over-flusht and swollen; 
 Nay, nor for thy sake, Michal, even for thine, 
 (Since I am holden to the utter truth 
 Nor tremble, lest it minish aught thy love,) 
 For none of these, came it to pass, that I, 
 With arrogance unseemly in such years, 
 Fronted the champion who defied our hosts. 
 One passion swayed, unmingled, mastering, pure, 
 And overcame me, fierce, consuming zeal 
 For the down-trodden honor of that Name 
 In whom all Israel trusts, that reverent Name 
 I speak on bended knee,- The Lord Jehovah. 
 
MIC HAL. 63 
 
 Glad, art thou, that no lesser motive urged? 
 Yea, sweet ! Who best loves Him, will best love thee. 
 
 Not all the might of this my single arm, 
 Not sense of right-doing, girding me within, 
 Not the trained uses of my field-bred craft, 
 Got me the victory. Even as a pebble, 
 Weak instrument of vengeance in His hand, 
 The Lord did hurl me, and the mighty foe 
 Fell slain thereby. 
 
 But, peradventure thou 
 
 Hast thoughts of other conquest in thy heart : 
 And crav st to know the fashion of its on-going. 
 Oft sitting on the dais, what times the King 
 Had me in presence that my minstrelsy 
 Might chase the spirit of evil from his mind, 
 I caught dim visions of a coifed head 
 That bent and listened, behind the wind-waft screen. 
 So day by day I watched thy coming, still 
 Tracing thy tender shadow out against 
 The filmy hangings; side-way drooping face, 
 Hands held in earnest clasp, and forward reach 
 Of attitude attent. When I could draw 
 Forth strains that wrought right marvellously, I felt 
 It was by reason of thy presence nigh, 
 That made my heart leap merrily, as with wine. 
 And when the odorous rustle of thy garments 
 
64 MICHAL. 
 
 Told *thou hadst passed, the spiriting charm went too ; 
 And on the instant all my strings waxed shrill, 
 As if the envious noon had drawn a-near 
 And stolen their delicate secret quite away. 
 
 And now . . . yea, flush, fair cheek, whereof the bloom 
 May shame the sunned pomegranate, I do know, 
 That as a fragrant flagon kept untasted, 
 Thy virgin heart hath kept the wine of love 
 For slaking of my thirst with a refreshment 
 Purer, more infinite-sweet than Bethlehem s well. 
 
THE ROYAL PREACHER. 
 
 i. 
 REMEMBER thy Creator : not when snow 
 
 Whiter than Harmon s settleth on thy brow; 
 Not when thy feeble footstep tottereth slow, 
 That once was wont to bound as Bether s roe, 
 Scorning the hunter s snare, but even now, 
 
 Now in thy days of youth, when memory 
 And mind and purpose yield as doth the stem 
 Of a two-summer d palm-tree: give to them 
 
 The keeping of that wisdom which will be 
 Hard of the getting, if thou bide the hour 
 Till stiffening age shall mock thy waning power, 
 Before the evil days be come, or years 
 
 Draw nigh when thou, benumbed of soul, shalt say, 
 "I find no pleasure in them, naught but tears, 
 
 For, verily, memory s self doth slip away!" 
 
 ii. 
 
 While all is glad about thee, while the sun 
 Or moon or stars above be darkened not ; 
 
 fi * E 65 
 
66 THE ROTAL PREACHER. 
 
 Before thy fainting noontide waxeth hot, 
 And in the east thy morn is just begun, 
 Remember Him who made thee. In the day 
 
 Of lightsome youth, the clouds about the heart 
 
 That notwithstanding gather, quickly part, 
 And leave clear shining when they melt away. 
 But for the sad old man, the sunset ray 
 Is briefly kindled : Though the storm be past, 
 
 Behind, the cleaving murk and mist remain ; 
 
 The watery gleam of promise doth not last, 
 The clouds return again after the rain ! 
 
 in. 
 
 Then all whereon thy trust was fixed, shall fail ; 
 The boasted keepers of thy house of clay 
 Shall tremble, the stout limbs that were thy stay, 
 
 Like strong men vanquished, bow themselves and quail 
 
 For very helplessness, thy comforts cease 
 To soothe as heretofore, the comely grace 
 Now fair to see, be wasted from thy face, 
 
 Even to thyself betokening sure release. 
 
 The soul that through the lattice of thine eye, 
 
 Looked forth with broadened vision, hence shall mark 
 
 A growing dimness creeping up the sky, 
 And sigh by reason of the coming dark. 
 
THE ROYAL PREACHER. 67 
 
 IV. 
 
 The doors aforetime wide-set to the throng, 
 Inviting joyous entrance, then shall be 
 Shut in the streets; and strange will sound to thee 
 The madness and the mirth that crowd along. 
 The night will bring thee slumber without rest ; 
 And ere the earliest bird hath left its nest 
 To hail the day-spring, thou wilt watch for dawn, 
 And marvel it should crawl so slowly on, 
 Only to say "Would God the hours were o er!" 
 Thy world shall sink to silence : voices dear 
 Die out to wordless murmurs in thine ear, 
 And music s soft delights shall charm no more. 
 
 v. 
 
 Thy heart shall vex itself with nameless fears, 
 Seeing the strength that stood thy stead is gone, 
 And there is left no staff to lean upon, 
 
 Along the footway of the dusking years. 
 
 White as the blossoms which the almond-tree 
 Above its bald and leafless branches bears, 
 Shall be the whiteness of thy thinning hairs. 
 
 The very cricket in the grass shall be 
 A burden to thy flesh. Desire shall fail ; 
 Beauty and grace and passion, naught avail 
 
68 THE ROYAL PREACHER, 
 
 To stir thy palsied senses. Then shall come 
 The end of all, to still the low-sunk pain: 
 
 Neighbors shall bear thee to thy last long home, 
 And through the streets shall wend the mournful train. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Or ever the mysterious silver cord 
 
 Be loosed that to the body binds the soul, 
 Or ever broken be the golden bowl 
 
 Wherein the water of our life is stored, 
 
 Or at the fount the pitcher break that bears 
 
 Our daily draught up, or the wheel, around 
 
 Which all the mystic coils of sense are wound, 
 Be stopped beside the cistern unawares, 
 
 Then shall the dust return to earth again, 
 As once it was, and mingle with its clod, 
 Then shall the spirit, set free from every chain 
 
 Wherewith the flesh had bound it, go to God. 
 
 For this the reckoned sum of all shall be, 
 
 That childhood, youth and age are vanity. 
 
THE LAMENT OF JOAB. 
 
 SNATCHED from the onward rush of trampling feet, 
 His harness yet ungirt, and his round cheek 
 Pressing a dinted shield, lay Asahel, 
 The boast of Judah, Bethlehem s youngest Chief, 
 Of whom the deeds of valor made harvest-songs 
 Wherewith the reapers cheered their noontide rest. 
 Scarcely sufficed the mantle about him cast, 
 To hide the death-stab; and the bloody ooze 
 Was staining the trampled grass. 
 
 Hot from pursuit, 
 
 And flushed with such a rage as yet had spared 
 Within his soul no silence quiet enough 
 For sorrow, Joab bade the host aside : 
 And then the Captain of an hundred fights, 
 Within whose bosom none made sure that even 
 One healthful human spot was left unseared 
 By scathe of war, fell prone with grief and wail. 
 
 "Alas, my brother! Like a netted bird 
 
 That thou should st perish, and thy cunning spear 
 
 69 
 
70 THE LAMENT OF JOAB. 
 
 Trail in the dust with none avenging blow, 
 Alas, alas, my brother ! 
 
 " God s creature thus we named thee in our pride, 
 So goodly wert thou, stout of heart and limb, 
 So fenced about with princely gift and grace, 
 Alas, alas, my brother ! 
 
 "The winged feet that left the roe behind 
 Tracked the gier-eagle home, stretched to the goal 
 Ever the first, now moveless, stony-still : 
 Alas, alas, my brother! 
 
 "Behind the lattice-screen our Mother sits 
 Bemoaning thee, with breathless questionings thrust, 
 Of battle-tidings, at the passers-by : 
 
 Alas, alas, my brother ! 
 
 "We bear thee back this night across the plain 
 Where yesternoon thou boundedst like a stag, 
 And lay thee dead, for answer, at her feet : 
 Alas, alas, my mother ! 
 
 "Was it for this she nursed the unfathered boy 
 Through joyless days of desolate widowhood ? 
 Through lone, unholpen griefs, only for this? 
 Alas, alas, my brother ! 
 
THE LAMENT OF JOAB. J 
 
 "Thy sun gone down at noon, thy life unlived, 
 Thy purpose broken off, thy hopes plucked up, 
 Thy share in youth s good heritage foregone : 
 I weep, I weep, my brother ! 
 
 "Now when the land is all astir through strife, 
 When high deeds beckon, and hot bosoms throb, 
 To lay thee in the noisome sepulchre ! . . . 
 
 Ah, woe is me, my brother!" 
 
THE WRITING OF THE KING. 
 
 A PARAPHRASE. 
 
 I SAID, what time my fears 
 Beheld the cutting asunder of my day, 
 In through the gates of death I go my way, 
 
 And leave behind the remnant of my years. 
 
 I said, I shall not see 
 My Lord within the land of living men, 
 Nor earth s inhabitants behold again, 
 
 Nor all the mighty things that are to be. 
 
 Mine age is borne away 
 
 Even as a shepherd s tent from pasture-lands, 
 Or severed like the weaver s finished bands, 
 
 Through pining sicknesses and slow decay. 
 
 I count the hours till morn 
 When as a lion springing in his strength 
 To crush his prey, Thou lt make an end at length; 
 
 And like a crane or swallow, I moan forlorn. 
 
 72 
 
THE WRITING OF THE KING. 73 
 
 No cushat s note could be 
 
 Sadder than mine, more filled with utter wail : 
 Through looking upward, lo ! mine eyelids fail ; 
 
 I am oppressed ; Lord, undertake for me ! 
 
 Thou shalt once more be whole : 
 He surely spake ! I heard it through my tears : 
 Tis He hath done it: Softly all my years 
 
 Now shall I go in lowliness of soul. 
 
 My Lord, I live ! Thou hast 
 Revived my spirit : Thy recovering breath 
 Hath snatched me from the loathsome pit of death, 
 
 And Thou behind Thy back my sins hast cast. 
 
 The grave, it cannot praise, 
 Death cannot celebrate Thy majesty; 
 The living, yea, the living unto Thee, 
 
 As I this day, a thankful voice shall raise. 
 
 They shall rehearse it o er, 
 Father to son, the mercy shown the King ; 
 And I on stringed instruments will sing 
 
 Within God s house His praise for evermore. 
 
FROM GREEK STORY. 
 
ALCYONE. 
 
 , leave me not;" she cried, and her bared 
 
 arms, 
 
 Wherefrom the saffron robe flowed back as waves 
 That on white Naxos break, still closer clung : 
 
 "So newly am I come within thy walls, 
 That still I crave a sense of welcome nigh 
 To banish strangeness; and I scarce do feel 
 My title to thy home s sweet sovereignties, 
 Unless that thou be by to prove it good : 
 I seem no alien, when I turn to thee, 
 With questioning looks that read their answer writ 
 Large-letter d on thy brow. But missing thee, 
 I sigh o er many a precious love foregone, 
 Brooding upon it, that none of all I cherished, 
 The tender playmates of my rock-bound Isle, 
 My surf- wash d Strongyle, do smile me back 
 The fond, old time, or with home-voice recall 
 My happy by-gone. If thou goest abroad, 
 I droop perforce : The past, for which thy presence 
 No sea-room grants, beats strong against my heart 
 7 # 77 
 
78 ALCYONE. 
 
 As on our cliffs the surge was wont to beat ; 
 
 And yet, how quick its ebbing, when thou dost come 
 
 To fill its hollowed depths!" 
 
 "Thy moaning, Sweet, 
 Is sad as Cyprian doves when from her isle 
 Their Goddess wanders. Love doth overstate 
 The soft self-pity of thy loneliness : 
 Thou knowest the violets hoard their odors best 
 In the night-absence of their lord, the sun:" 
 And Ceyx pointed to the land-lock d bay 
 Where rocked his vessel. "Not more smooth," he 
 
 said 
 
 "Thy molten mirror than yon crystal sea: 
 Confess thy fears forecastings, little one, 
 Have like a goad behind thy pleadings, pricked 
 Keener than love even, hurrying on thy speech, 
 And honeying it with artifice : Well, let 
 The bee snatch at the rosy lure, yet so 
 Escape it withal!" and smilingly he sealed 
 With fast-shut kiss, the dewy-parted lips. 
 
 "But heed thou not thy pillow s scared unrest 
 That drones to thee of peril when I. am gone: 
 Left now alone, keep thou my state upholden 
 With self-assertion of thy dignities 
 Of gracious wifehood, sure that in my heart, 
 
ALCYONE. 79 
 
 Thy royal realm, love busies all the hours, 
 Building a palace fit to be thy home. 
 
 "To Glares swiftly borne, my doubts dissolved 
 Before the Oracle, I ll haste to mount 
 The homeward wave ; and passion, gathering strength, 
 And overtopping hindering circumstance, 
 Soon on thy bosom shall break, and ripple up 
 In creamy kisses, stranded on thy mouth. 
 
 "What? eyes still cloud-wrack d as the hidden top 
 Of blue Olympus? . . . Know the Immortal Gods 
 Claim loyal service, and I dare not put 
 Supreme above it, this too-sufficing love, 
 Lest they do frown on us with harmful brows. 
 Then let me go ; and thou, meanwhile, high heap 
 Apollo s shrine : for thy on-wafting prayers 
 Will speed me surelier than the kindest winds 
 By Zephyrus loosed." 
 
 With rapid sail full-set 
 
 Toward the far Isle, King Ceyx from the deck 
 Waved light farewells to her, his weeping bride, 
 Who stood with outstretcht arms on the white sands, 
 Even as he gazed, doting upon the tears, 
 The breathless throbs and palpitating doubts 
 Wherewith Alcyone s so wifely love 
 
8o ALCYONE. 
 
 Had wrapped itself, as twere a drapery flung 
 In zoneless freedom above the sanctity 
 Of foamy swell and billowy curve, whose grace 
 Was heightened thereby, not hid. 
 
 Days passed amain, 
 
 Yet brought small respite to the mind distraught 
 With fateful prescience and consuming dread. 
 The girdle that with wealth of needlecraft 
 Against his coming she wrought, slipt listlessly 
 Down from her lap, and tuneless lay the lyre 
 She used to touch for him, as eve by eve, 
 Her vision dazed through travelling e er so oft 
 The golden path he went athwart the main 
 With boding heart she watched his coming. 
 
 Thus, 
 
 Among her cushions, with her wistful face 
 Turned seaward, so the first white glint of sail 
 Might greet her sight, ere she was ware, she slept, 
 And sleeping, dreamed. She saw above her bend 
 The mist-crown d Thetis, every look informed 
 With pity goddess-like; and on her ear 
 Fell words as sad as whispering Oreads hid 
 In piney forests: 
 
 "Thou shalt watch in vain, 
 O sorrowful ! shalt wait and watch in vain : 
 
ALCTON&. 8 1 
 
 For nevermore the sail that hence hath borne 
 Thy darling, shall come back again to thee 
 Out from the purple deep, where low he lies 
 Couched in fair Aphrodite s coral caves." 
 
 Up-starting from her dream, Alcyone* 
 Uttered a cry of woe : and calling around 
 Her household-maidens, straightway to the beach 
 That stretcht afar beneath the new-risen moon, 
 Hasted, her hair unbound, her milk-white feet 
 Unsandal d, and her quick-caught garments flung 
 Girdleless to the breeze. 
 
 Along the shore 
 
 Wailing she strayed, reaching her pleading arms 
 To woo him from the inexorable sea: 
 
 "O best, O dearest! Come to me once more! 
 Again, O come again ! All life, all hope, 
 All cheer my soul can ever know, all good, 
 I hold alone through thee: Give back thyself, 
 Thyself to me ; I perish else, I perish ! 
 Gods ! Dare ye babble, ye weakling comforters, 
 Of other solace left ? ... As if this drear, 
 Wide, empty world could hold one joy beside, 
 My King being gone ! Offer yon salty spray 
 To lips that shrivel with deadly thirst, and think 
 F 
 
82 ALCTON&. 
 
 To quench it ! O my lord, my lord, my life ! 
 Better to me than all the dwellers in heaven, 
 Dearer to me than all the peopled earth, 
 I die without thee!" 
 
 Moaning thus she went, 
 
 Her hand-maids following, weeping at the dole 
 They shrank to soothe, until she reached a jut 
 Of headland, at whose base the waters chafed 
 With ceaseless lap and fret. Gazing therefrom, 
 Her feverish vision seized upon a blot 
 Of darkness on the silvery line of beach ; 
 And turning to her followers, all dilate 
 With wide-eyed apprehension, thitherward 
 She dumbly pointed. 
 
 Ere their lips found words, 
 
 Fast down the ledge of splinter d rock she sped 
 With delicate feet that left the wounding flints 
 Crimson-besprent. 
 
 Soon as she gained the strand, 
 And neared the blackening speck, upon the night, 
 Came wafted upward to the listeners ears, 
 A shriek of such unutterable bale 
 As held them rooted to the lichen d shelve 
 With horror : for it told what not their fears 
 Had shaped into a thought, that the worst woe 
 That could befall their mistress, had befallen, 
 
ALCTON&. 83 
 
 That whom she sought, she found, her husband, 
 
 dead, 
 Dead, drifted shoreward, as an ocean-weed. 
 
 They saw her rush with wringing hands to fling 
 Herself upon him : but betwixt the drowned 
 And living, swept a refluent wave that sucked 
 The lifeless form back to the gulfing deep, 
 And from the scarped cliff, the gazers heard 
 The breeze-borne words: 
 
 "To thee I come, I come, 
 Beloved, since thou mayst not come to me ! 
 Reach out thine arms above the bitter brine, 
 And let me leap to meet thee, thus " 
 
 They caught 
 
 A gleam of flickering robes, a quick, dull plash, 
 The sullen gurgle of recoiling waves, 
 The clamorous screaming of a startled gull 
 That flapped its wings o erhead, but saw no more, 
 For all their searchings through the moonlit night, 
 For all their desolate wailings, nevermore 
 The woe-worn face of sad Alcyone". 
 
 When wintry storms were spent, and lenient airs 
 Smoothed with caressing hand the furrow d surge 
 
84 ALCYON&. 
 
 Within ^Egean seas, the voyager 
 Watching the halcyon with his brooding mate 
 Nested upon the waters tranquilly 
 As midst Thessalian myrtles, said, 
 "Behold 
 
 Alcyone and Ceyx ! We shall have 
 Fair weather for our sailing." 
 
ERINNA S SPINNING. 
 
 THE Lesbian youths are all abroad to-day, 
 Filling the vales with mirth, and up and down 
 The festive streets, with roses garlanded, 
 Go hand in hand fair MytilenS s daughters. 
 
 Slaves follow, bearing baskets overheaped 
 With myrtle, ivy, lilies, hyacinths, 
 And all the world of sweets, wherewith to deck 
 The May-day altar of the flowery goddess. 
 
 And pranksome children, spilling on the paths 
 Acanthus-blossoms from their laden d arms, 
 Come shouting after, mad with heyday glee, 
 Making fit ending to the gay procession. 
 
 Sweet goddess ! frown not on me, though I bring 
 No odorous wreath to hang above thy shrine : 
 For, "See, Erinna !" stern my mother saith, 
 " Thou gaddest not abroad with idle maidens. 
 
 85 
 
86 ERINNA S SPINNING. 
 
 " The buds will all unmask without thine aid, 
 The fruits round to their fullness, though no trains 
 Of dallying girls thus fray the noon-time hours 
 That wiser thrift should give to wheel and distaff. 
 
 And so I bide at home the day-long hours, 
 A prisoner at my loom : but yet my heart 
 Steals after my companions, while I keep 
 Time to their dances with my droning spindle. 
 
 I hear Alcaeus strike his lyric string, 
 I catch our Sappho s answering choric song 
 On some high festival, and my stirr d soul 
 Flutters to spring beyond the bars that cage it. 
 
 O for the April birth-right of the trees ! 
 
 O for the Dryad s scope to sun my thoughts 
 
 Till they unfold in myriad leafiness, 
 
 As now the quickening earth unfolds her blossoms. 
 
 But like a frost the nipping voice grates harsh: 
 "Hence with thy tablets, girl! The gods above 
 Made thee a woman, formed for household needs, 
 For wifely handicraft and ministration. 
 
 Pluck out these climbing fancies from thy thought, 
 Poor, weedy things, that ape the fibrous strength 
 
ERINNA S SPINNING. 87 
 
 Of overshadowing man, only to fail, 
 
 And failing so, to leave thee less a woman. 
 
 " Do what thou wilt, gird up thy maiden-gear, 
 Wrestle with athletes, hurl the warlike dart, 
 Spin forth the discus, in the Isthmian games 
 Enroll thyself amid the sleek-limb d runners ; 
 
 "Or with the Delphian lyre, essay thy skill, 
 Or measure dithyrambs with ^Eolian bards ; 
 And for thy pains, confess thyself outdone 
 Ever and always, gauged by manhood s stature." 
 
 If I make answer, that chaste Artemis 
 Is wise as Pythius, or the Queen of Heaven 
 Is strong of purpose as Olympian Jove, 
 She hastes to silence me with hot impatience: 
 
 "What man of men upon a woman s face 
 Hath pored to learn therefrom aught other lore 
 Than her one lesson, love?" I answer low, 
 "A woman taught her art once to a hero!" 
 
 She chafes: "I am beholden for thy hint: 
 The stylus fits thee, sooth, as did the skein, 
 The hand of Hercules, who sat unsex d 
 Struck for his dulness by the queenly slipper!" 
 
88 ERINNA S SPINNING. 
 
 Whereat the taunt: "What youth of Lesbos, stout, 
 Well-knit of limb, as ripe for peace as war, 
 In strophes versed by seer of Chios wrought, 
 Will think to choose thee for thy trick of singing? 
 
 "Nay talk with him of soft Milesian wools 
 Of Colchian linens, rose or saffron dyes, 
 Of broidery patterns for thy silken web, 
 Of Cyprian wines ; the youth is fond to listen. 
 
 " This maiden, (giving heed, he ponders thus,) 
 1 Could order aptly housely offices, 
 Could rule discreetly the sweet realm of home, 
 Could rear, control and wisely guide my children. " 
 
 Herewith she ends: "Erinna, have thou heed; 
 Let Lesbian virgins dance, let Sappho sing, 
 Improvident of wifehood s disciplines; 
 Thou, rend thy scrolls, and keep thee to thy spin 
 ning." 
 
 But what care I for wifehood ? ... I, so young ! 
 For matron dignities? They clog and bind: 
 For petty talk "Are olives fine this year? " 
 "Are Jigs full-formed?" Beshrew my mother s wis 
 dom! 
 
ERINNA S SPINNING. 89 
 
 I would renounce them all for Sappho s bay, 
 Forego them all for room to chant out free 
 The silent rhythms I hum within my heart, 
 And so for ever leave my weary spinning! 
 
 8* 
 
THE FLIGHT OF ARETHUSA. 
 
 i. 
 NEAR a cool Arcadian river, 
 
 Shadowed to its broider d brink, 
 By the snowy-blossom d alders, 
 
 Stooped a maiden down to drink. 
 On the hills her flying footsteps 
 
 Had been fleet as antelope s, 
 While her train the Virgin-huntress 
 
 Led along the Elean slopes : 
 Till o erweary with pursuing, she had turned aside to 
 
 lave 
 
 Burning cheek and throbbing forehead in the violet- 
 tinted wave. 
 
 ii. 
 From her panting waist she lightly 
 
 Let the loosen d girdle float, 
 And undid the golden arrow 
 
 That about her ivory throat 
 90 
 
THE FLIGHT OF ARETHUSA. 91 
 
 Held the purple peplon gathered, 
 
 Till the vestment slid and fell 
 From her bosom s orbed whiteness 
 
 From her shoulder s sloping swell; 
 And she started from the vision which the glassing 
 
 water threw, 
 
 Ravisht with the mirror d beauty back upon her blush 
 ing view. 
 
 in. 
 
 Buried half in ferny mosses, 
 
 One supporting hand gleamed fair, 
 While its fellow freed the braidings 
 
 Of the hyacinthine hair : 
 And as from the binding fillet 
 
 Fluttered each voluptuous tress, 
 Leaping high, the wooing water 
 
 Caught it in a glad caress : 
 When she leaned above its surface, as a crescent lily 
 
 dips, 
 Every ripple rushed to lavish kisses on her fragrant lips. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Arms, invisibly entwining, 
 
 Round her slender neck were thrown, 
 Round her neck whose veined opal 
 
 Mocked the curded Thasian stone. 
 
 8* 
 
92 THE FLIGHT OF ARETHUSA. 
 
 But the startled maiden, quivering 
 
 Like a timorous mountain roe, 
 When it hears the arrow hurtle 
 
 From Diana s silver bow, 
 Snatching up her dripping ringlets from the unseen 
 
 fingers play, 
 
 Through the scented, windless thickets sprang with footed 
 haste away. 
 
 v. 
 
 Breathlessly along the valley, 
 
 By the tangled myrtle-glade, 
 Underneath the flowering citrons, 
 
 And the aspens flickering shade, 
 On she sped, her footsteps skimming 
 
 Fast as morning s viewless wind, 
 As she saw her fond pursuer 
 
 Roll his gathering tide behind. 
 Then distraught she prayed for succor, and beneath her 
 
 sandal d feet 
 
 Gushed a fountain, and her being passed into its waters 
 sweet. 
 
 VI. 
 
 But she might not thus elude him ; 
 And within one pearly chain, 
 
THE FLIGHT OF ARETHUSA. 93 
 
 Sought he now to bind their currents 
 
 That they should not part again. 
 When through subterranean sources, 
 
 Soft the Naiad strove to glide, 
 He, by love s divining secret, 
 
 Evermore was near her side : 
 Till, through long pursuit triumphant, under far Sicilia s 
 
 sun, 
 Alpheus and Arethusa met and mingled into one. 
 
RHODOPE S SANDAL. 
 
 SLANT, arrowy beams from sheath of Helios dropt, 
 With golden lustre tipped the willowy marge 
 Of a pellucid stream that slid 
 Seaward with low, recurrent lapse, 
 That lulled the senses like a Lydian flute. 
 
 The lotos bowed above the tide and dreamed ; 
 
 The broad-leaved calamus arose and fell 
 As on a lover s breast the head 
 His beating heart hath rocked to sleep ; 
 
 And all the air was drowsed with tropic calm. 
 
 Parting aside the willows, coyly came 
 A maiden, stealing on with furtive step 
 
 And shy, quick-glancing eyes that turned 
 Hither and thither, like a bird s, 
 Who fears invasion of her callow brood, 
 
 She stood and listened : There, a heron s plash, 
 O erhead, the sunset crooning of a dove, 
 
 94 
 
RHODOPfrS SANDAL. 95 
 
 The shrill cicala s cry the purl 
 Of rushes laughing in their sleep 
 Were all the sounds that broke the solitude. 
 
 Then, unafraid, she loosed her sandals off, 
 And hung her fillet on a pensile bough ; 
 And from her virgin waist unbound 
 The crimson zone of broidery-work, 
 And slipt her garments from her crouching form. 
 
 Instant, she leaped, chin-deep, within the flood, 
 Waking the water-lilies with her plunge, 
 And scattering sparkles all about, 
 Until her clinging hair was crowned 
 With jewels bright as queenly diadem. 
 
 As thus she sported, careless and secure, 
 An eagle sailing from his eyried height, 
 
 (Her fate beneath his wings,) swooped down, 
 And snatched her sandal silver-webbed, 
 And bore it in his beak, straight up the blue. 
 
 Across bare, yellow sands he floated high, 
 And poised above a royal city, saw 
 
 A king sit on his judgment seat ; 
 
 And in his bosom dropt the prize, 
 As if some winged thing sought shelter there. 
 
96 RHODOP&S SANDAL. 
 
 Amazed, the king from out his mantle drew 
 The delicate sandal, marvelling much, if foot 
 Of zephyr or of goddess fair 
 Was fashioned in such dainty wise, 
 As never yet beseemed a mortal maid s. 
 
 "Now search the land!" the monarch cried amain; 
 "Fly east, fly west and south and north, nor stay 
 Until ye find the foot that wore 
 This little sandal silver- webbed, 
 And lead the wearer to my palace gates." 
 
 Fast sped the messengers, nor sped they far : 
 For soon they found the silver sandal s mate, 
 And fitted both upon the feet 
 That were like Psyche s, white and small, 
 As only formed to skim Olympian floors. 
 
 They drew the maiden from her olives shade, 
 And in the simple garments that she wore, 
 Led her all-blushing, to the king, 
 Who smiling, raised her to his throne : 
 And thus fair Rhodope* became a queen. 
 
THE QUENCHED BRAND.* 
 
 I. 
 
 UPON her couch the pale-cheek d mother lay, 
 Her intertwining hands upraised in prayer 
 To Here, for a blessing on her child, 
 Her seven-days babe, that, wrapt in leopard-skins, 
 Close at her side lay sleeping. 
 
 At Calydon, King CEneus kept high feast, 
 And shed libations for his last-born son, 
 Till all the palace rang with merriment, 
 And the dark wine of Chios, freely drunk, 
 Made glad the shouting people. 
 
 And now the revellers had parted thence, 
 Leaving a drowsy quiet in the halls, 
 
 * The only apology that can be made for handling a subject so 
 finely and exhaustively treated in Atalanta in Calydon, is, that the 
 above was written before the author had seen this master-piece. 
 9 G 97 
 
98 THE QUENCHED BRAND. 
 
 That steeped Althaea s senses, as with breath 
 Of Attica s dew-freshened asphodels, 
 Or Eastern mandragora. 
 
 At ease thus lying, with light-winged thoughts 
 Buzzing about her fruited heart like bees 
 About a basket-heap of amber grapes, 
 She smiled through inward sweet content, and reached 
 To touch her boy, still smiling. 
 
 When all a-sudden, the mild-scented air 
 Grew murk, and chillness overhung the room, 
 And on the hearth the bickering flame that played 
 Among the cloven cedar branches, sank, 
 Swallowed in sullen ashes. 
 
 The fateful Moirae with their stony eyes 
 Stood at the couch-foot : on the child they gazed, 
 Still softly slumbering in his dappled skins, 
 Then on the mother as she stretched her hands 
 In awe-struck deprecation. 
 
 And Clotho spake: "Thouseest yon lighted brand; 
 When it hath smquldered down to leaden ash, 
 This sleeping child shall die: Tis so decreed: 
 Yet spare thy tears; The sight of mortals grief 
 Moves not the stern Erinyes." 
 
THE QUENCHED BRAND. 99 
 
 Whereon they vanished. But what direst fate 
 May not be thwarted by a mother s love? 
 - Althaea trembling, weaker for her fears, 
 Sprang from her couch, and seizing the red brand 
 Within the tall urn quenched it. 
 
 And in an ivory coffer at her side 
 She locked it close, ere that her maidens came; 
 And in her fragrant bosom dropt the key; 
 And all the while the little babe slept on, 
 His face with smilings rippled. 
 
 II. 
 
 Fast went the years. Althaea saw her boy, 
 Become the pride of the Etolian land, 
 Wondrous for beauty, famed for bold exploits,- 
 Foremost among the venturous Argonauts 
 
 That bore the Fleece from Colchis. 
 
 And all abroad was blown his loudening praise, 
 When from the ravaged plains his prowess rid 
 
100 THE QUENCHED BRAND. 
 
 The tusked curse, the scourge of Artemis, 
 And to the warrior-sharers of the chase, 
 
 Portioned the spoil of conquest. 
 
 Yet in the Hunt of Calydon the strife 
 Waxed hot, and plunging midmost in the fight, 
 The son of CEneus, striking right and left, 
 Pierced even to the death, a famous Prince, 
 His mother s nearest kinsman. 
 
 Fast-footed sped the news: "The eldest born 
 Of Thestiua lies by Meleagros slain !" 
 Whereat Althaea s heart was racked with grief, 
 Grief for the brother lost, and utmost rage 
 Against the hand that slew him. 
 
 She tore the crescent fillet from her head, 
 And from her shoulders flung the queenly robe, 
 And with rent locks made wail : "Were not we twain 
 Nursed at one mother s bosom, dandled each 
 By the same kingly father? 
 
 " O most unhappy ! What strange madness this ! 
 That he, my son, should smother out in blood 
 A mother s pity ! Hear, ye vengeful Gods ! 
 Hear me, O Dis, Lord of the shadowy Land, 
 And bid him to thy Hades!" 
 
THE QUENCHED BRAND. lot 
 
 Thus wild she prayed, unwitting of her words : 
 But Atropos, the dread Unchangeable, 
 Heard and decreed: "The slayer shall be slain; 
 The fagot kept beneath the coffer s lid 
 
 Shall quick consume to ashes." 
 
 And some stood nigh, who when the warrior came 
 Within the doors, made haste to utter forth 
 Close in his hearing, the delirious words 
 His sorrow-smitten mother spake when crazed 
 For anguish of the fallen. 
 
 Wherefore the soul of Meleagros grew 
 Sullen, defiant, and he hung aloft 
 His dinted armor high upon the wall, 
 Saying unto his wife who loosed his belt, 
 "I go no more to battle." 
 
 III. 
 
 Thereon it happed, when those who would avenge 
 Their Prince s death, no longer saw the Chief 
 
i! THE QUENCHED BRAND. 
 
 Most feared of all, among the combatants, 
 They laid ^Etolia waste, and Calydon 
 
 Was leaguered with their armies. 
 
 And ever as their hosts were beaten back, 
 Wave-like, they came again ; and month by month 
 They battered at the walls until they shook, 
 And in the imminence of the close-girt siege r 
 Despair stalked through the city. 
 
 O would that Meleagros led us forth!" 
 The warriors sighed beneath the tottering walls; 
 But unavailing were their utmost pleas, _ 
 Though women came and at his threshold knelt, 
 And filled his halls with wailings. 
 
 Until at length before his listless knees 
 
 The yellow-haired, fair Kleopatra fell, 
 
 And wrapped his beard about her hands and wept : 
 
 Then lightly sprang, and from the lofty wall 
 
 Snatched down the cobwebbed helmet : 
 
 Sobbing "My husband, put aside thy wrath; 
 Think on the woe that overwhelms thy land; 
 Think on thine ancient sire, the hungry babes 
 That drain the wan-faced mothers empty breasts, 
 And wake thy soul to pity ! 
 
THE QUENCHED BRAND. 103 
 
 "Behold thy children! See they seize my robe, 
 And cling and clamor for the bread withheld : 
 And this pale starveling ! Ah, the fig he craves 
 Is past my granting: Must we perish all, 
 
 And thine the power to save us?" 
 
 He heard, the Leader of the mighty Hunt, 
 And answered not : but girt his armor on, 
 And strode straight outward to the yielding walls, 
 And gave such speech that the disheartened cried, 
 "Hope comes with Meleagros!" 
 
 He summoned whom the cruel siege had spared, 
 And bade the women strengthen them with food, 
 Searching the cellars for last stint of wine ; 
 And fed them to the full, while mothers wept 
 At thought of starving children. 
 
 And when their hearts were cheered, he bade the gates 
 Fly open, and he flung the desperate band, 
 Himself the first, upon the unguarded foe, 
 And drove them far beyond JEtolia s plain, 
 And back returned victorious. 
 
 No spear had scathed him, nor an arrow grazed ; 
 And yet the harsh Erinyes, unappeased, 
 
104 THE QUENCHED BRAND. 
 
 Forecasting his destruction, moved the men 
 Of Calydon to discontentful plaints 
 
 That brake in sullen speeches. 
 
 "Behold," they said, "this Hercules of ours ! 
 What thanks owe we to him ? No love of us, 
 No rueing of our ills, outweighed to rend 
 His tame inaction : The fair-haired girl-wife 
 Alone hath saved the city." 
 
 He heard their cavils, and his heart grew hot : 
 "Unkennel d dogs!" he chafed, "that snarl against 
 The hand that slips their chain !" and high he hung 
 Upon the wall his brazen gear once more, 
 Nor went among the people ; 
 
 But sat within at Kleopatra s side, 
 And hearkened to the tales she skilled to weave 
 About her sire, and all the steadfast love 
 That won Marpessa from Apollo s grasp, 
 Marpessa, her fair mother. 
 
 And as Althaea watched his sloth, her heart 
 Grew envious-angry, and against her son 
 Turned with quick passion, seeing his father waste, 
 Unhelped of him, and with her hasty breath 
 She fanned the sharp vexation. 
 
THE QUENCHED BRAND. 105 
 
 "What good doth he to Calydon, with ears 
 Full-stuffed with woolly speech, hands bounden fast 
 By yonder lengths of yellow-floating hair? 
 Nay ! such ensample undermines the state ; 
 
 Fates ! do your work upon him ! 
 
 Then with rash hand, the blackened brand long hid 
 Within the ivory coffer, forth she drew, 
 And on the glowing coals of juniper 
 Flung it remorseless down, and saw the flame 
 With forked tongue enfold it. 
 
 Within his distant hall, his children nigh, m 
 
 His wife quick plying of her rattling loom, 
 Himself upon some carven idless bent, 
 The face of Meleagros sudden drooped, 
 
 Blanched with a ghastly pallor. 
 
 Spilling her shuttles on the marble floor, 
 Upstarted Kleopatra with a cry 
 Caught from the children rushing to sustain ; 
 And with her scooping hand across his brow 
 She flung the lustral water. 
 
 "In vain" he gasped "In vain! Dark Atropos 
 Draweth anear ; I see her mystic form : 
 
106 THE QUENCHED BRAND. 
 
 Come hither, little ones ! and thou, my wife, 
 Whom I have loved above our Calydon, 
 Still let me feel thy presence. 
 
 "Thy beauty was to me beyond renown, 
 Thy songs delightsomer than mouthed praise, 
 Thy love life-giving as Olympian wine ; 
 Yea, kiss me close ! all shall be ours again 
 In the pale realm of shadows. 
 
 "Upon the flowery banks of Acheron" 
 But even as he panted forth the word, 
 The last faint flutter on Althaea s hearth 
 Went out in darkness : and the warrior lay 
 Dead as the ashen embers. 
 
BALLAD AND OTHER VERSE. 
 
THE LADY HILDEGARDE S WEDDING 
 
 "I DARE not doubt his word,* she said, 
 With steadfast voice and clear; 
 
 "For sure as knight did ever plight 
 True faith, he will be here. 
 
 "He sware it on this crested ring, 
 That by our Lord s dear leave, 
 He d wed me here at Lyndismere, 
 This blessed Christmas Eve." 
 
 Sir Walter dallied with his blade, 
 And his steel eyne grew wroth : 
 
 "Nay sweetheart, see! it cannot be: 
 Thy knight hath broke his troth." 
 
 10 109 
 
1 10 THE LADY HILDEGARDE S WEDDING. 
 
 Out spake the Lady Hildegarde 
 With grieved, reproachful air: 
 "None other may such slander say, 
 My father only dare ! 
 
 "My bower-maids all await my call, 
 
 My bridesmen will be here; 
 And merry throngs with wedding songs 
 Shall bide at Lyndismere." 
 
 "Now out upon thee ! simple lass! 
 
 With heat Sir Walter cried; 
 "To-morrow e en, with seas between, 
 
 How can st thou be a bride? 
 
 "The Nether-land is far o erseas, 
 And angry storms may roar; 
 Or war may send (which Heaven forfend !) 
 Tidings to vex thee sore. 
 
 "Forbear, until the galliot drop 
 
 Anchor at Maiden-head, 
 To fix the day, and yea or. nay, 
 Proclaim thou wilt be wed. 
 
 "Let the old Hall ring loud and high 
 With roistering Twelfth-night cheer; 
 
THE LADY HILDEGARDE S WEDDING, in 
 
 Bring holly-glow and mistletoe 
 To garland Lyndismere. 
 
 "Let frolic mummers don their masks, 
 
 Let morris-dancers come 
 And reel and sing in jocund ring, 
 With rebeck, pipe and drum. 
 
 "Of capons, boar s-head, nut-brown ale, 
 
 Let liberal store be shown; 
 And wassail-shout shall make the bout 
 The merriest ever known. 
 
 "The jesters with their bells shall plot 
 
 All mirth-provoking pranks: 
 So ... let me sue ; forget Sir Hugh, 
 And take thy father s thanks!" 
 
 She heard, the Lady Hildegarde, 
 
 With firm, unflinching eye; 
 Then forth she stepped and onward swept, 
 
 Disdainful of reply. 
 
 The snows lay deep round Lyndismere, 
 
 But generous fires blazed free, 
 And casements clear flashed far and near 
 
 Their gleams across the lea. 
 
112 THE LADY HILDEGARDE S WEDDING. 
 
 Retainers filled the ancient Hall, 
 Guests thronged as fell the night; 
 
 And rare to see, right gorgeously 
 The chapel streamed with light. 
 
 "Be brave Sir Hugh come back?" they asked 
 
 The gray-haired seneschal: 
 " Not yet? Twas said to-night he d wed 
 Our lady of the Hall." 
 
 Sir Walter chafed and strode apart; 
 
 The cassock d priest was seen; 
 And maidens fair came pair by pair . . . 
 
 "What could the folly mean!" 
 
 A sudden vision hushed the mirth, 
 Sir Walter s breath came hard; 
 
 For last of all adown the hall 
 Swept Lady Hildegarde. 
 
 "Saint Agnes! but she s comely!" quoth 
 
 The parti-color d clown; 
 "And by the rood ! in bridal hood 
 
 And bridal veil and gown ! 
 
 "Sir Hugh should e en be here to mark 
 The orange-posies bloom; 
 
THE LADT HILDEGARDE S WEDDING. 113 
 
 Will proxy do for stout Sir Hugh? 
 Then / would fain be groom ! 
 
 Straight onward to the chancel rails 
 
 The snooded maidens passed, 
 When suddenly the companie 
 
 Was startled by a blast, 
 
 A blast that echoed loud and shrill 
 
 Without the castle-gate, 
 As though the train that paused amain 
 
 Was sorely loth to wait. 
 
 Unmoved stood Lady Hildegarde, 
 
 Nor seemed to hear nor feel, 
 Till up the floor, one moment more, 
 
 There tramped a clanking heel. 
 
 "Beloved!" With one bound they met! 
 
 Then dashing off a tear, 
 She turned and said with lifted head, 
 "Father, Sir Hugh is here!" 
 10* H 
 
FRA ANGELICO. 
 
 i. 
 
 WITHIN Fiesole s gray cloister-cell, 
 
 In beatific vision wrapt apart, 
 
 Tears on his cheek and prayer within his heart, 
 Kneeled a cowl d monk. The toll of convent bell,- 
 
 ii. 
 
 The iterant tread of mute Dominican 
 
 Along the stony floor, the soughing pines 
 That sentinel d the hills in drowsy lines, 
 
 The gurgle of the hidden brook that ran 
 
 ill. 
 
 Seaward beneath the walls, a bleating lamb, 
 The far-off tinkle at the herds release, 
 Were all the sounds that jarred the purple peace, 
 
 Or lightly rippled the soft-gliding calm. 
 114 
 
FRA AN GEL I CO. 1 15 
 
 IV. 
 
 Within a niche withdrawn, an easel stood 
 With implements of artist-craft displayed ; 
 And where a missal s leaves were open laid, 
 
 Fell the slant shadow of the holy rood. 
 
 v. 
 
 Starry and golden, flame and azure hues 
 Caught out of aether, waited the command 
 Of that meek kneeler s mystic Master-hand, 
 
 To glorify the canvas and transfuse 
 
 VI. 
 
 The strange, seraphic beauty of his thought, 
 Till the celestial impulse had sufficed 
 To ray, with light divine the pictur d Christ, 
 
 At which with awed and reverent touch he wrought. 
 
 VII. 
 
 For Art, imperious mistress, as her thrall, 
 
 Had striven to bind him to her service fast, 
 Service, how sweet ! yet he had learned at last, 
 
 Not to forego, but consecrate it all. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Thenceforth he sought his easel as a shrine, 
 And bowed before it like an aureol d saint 
 
Il6 FRA ANGELICO. 
 
 With eyes that swam the while he kneeled to paint 
 The marred and smitten lineaments divine. 
 
 IX. 
 
 With sunset-gold he haloed round the head 
 That lay aforetime on the lowly straw, 
 While visions glorious as the shepherds saw, 
 
 With sacred ecstasy his spirit fed. 
 
 x. 
 
 If from the spangled meadows any bear 
 The creamy leaf the pasture-lily shows, 
 Or brought him from the hedge, a folded rose, 
 
 Some cherub s cheek their mingled tints would wear. 
 
 XI. 
 
 The mists that hallowed morning s tranquil skies, 
 The crystal hoarded in the violet s cup, 
 Lent their pathetic gleams to kindle up 
 
 The heaven-toucht haze of Mary s clouded eyes. 
 
 XII. 
 
 And thus he served the Master, while he trod 
 The path he loved the best, inspired to fill 
 His work with worship s rapture, climbing still 
 
 Beauty s ascending steps that lead to God. 
 
FRA ANGELICO. 117 
 
 XIII. 
 
 " Beato :" So they named him: and by this, 
 Down-drifting to us from the Long Ago, 
 The pure, enthusiast life we come to know. 
 
 That gave to Art its holiest types of bliss. 
 
THE NAMELESS PILGRIM.* 
 
 "Now where-away fare ye, son of mine?" 
 
 .^Edwen the mother said ; 
 "And why are these stalwart limbs of thine 
 
 So weary and ill-bestead?" 
 
 "A-weary am I, with woeful ruth, 
 
 Thou sayest it, mother sweet; 
 For he that I served with a liegeman s truth, 
 
 Hath trodden me underfeet." 
 
 "Now who be the baron foul or fair, 
 
 Saxon or Norman he, 
 Requiteth thy fealty thus? declare 
 Wherefore he chode with thee." 
 
 And Godric made answer: "Sooth to tell, 
 Tis a tale thou hast heard afore : 
 
 The World is the Master I wrought for well, 
 But he payeth me wage no more. 
 
 * An incident in the life of the Saxon hermit, Saint Godric. 
 118 
 
THE NAMELESS PILGRIM. 119 
 
 "With a gnawing hunger I craved the bread 
 
 I had eaten through riotous years ; 
 My trencher he heaped with ashes instead, 
 And for wine he poured me tears." 
 
 Then ^Edwen the mother was tearful-glad, 
 
 And she claspt her aged palms, 
 And lifted to heaven her eyes, long sad, 
 
 And worshipped the Lord in psalms. 
 
 "Naught other vassalage wilt thou seek?" 
 
 She questioned in hope and fear; 
 "I would have thee fain of the fen-lands speak, 
 And thy home on the marshy Wear." 
 
 "Nay, never again by the marshy Wear 
 
 Will I fashion my wattled home ; 
 For a pilgrim, ye wot by the token here, 
 Now wendeth his way to Rome." 
 
 "O blessed Saint Cuthbert of The Isles!" 
 
 Cried ^Edwen, "In very deed, 
 Thou hast heard my prayers, and hast rent the wiles, 
 And the thrall of sin is freed ! 
 
 "I also a pilgrim s pains would feel, 
 Thirst, weariness, hunger, heat; 
 
120 THE NAMELESS PILGRIM. 
 
 I also, for Christ s sweet sake, would kneel 
 At the Holy Father s feet." 
 
 Then ^Edwen and Godric, hand in hand 
 
 Journeyed o er broomy down, 
 Across gray moor and pasture-land, 
 
 By thorpe and stead and town : 
 
 And as they neared the shingly beach, 
 
 Adown by the billows blue, 
 A maiden drew nigh, and with silvery speech 
 
 Said, "I am a pilgrim too." 
 
 The fierce, stout gaze of Godric quailed 
 
 As he met her dove-like look, 
 And his spirit, in pride of manhood mailed, 
 
 Like a reed of the river shook. 
 
 They spared to question her of her name, . 
 
 Of her high or low degree ; 
 But trusting and trusted, on they came 
 
 To the shore of the surging sea. 
 
 Through the vineyard paths they winned their way, 
 
 And the hours of travail o er, 
 They laid them down at the set of day 
 
 On many a threshing-floor. 
 
THE NAMELESS PILGRIM. 12 1 
 
 And ^Edwen the mother her mantle spread 
 
 And covered the maiden sweet, 
 As she rested her innocent, down-dropt head 
 
 On the piles of the golden wheat. 
 
 By the wayside cross and the forest shrine, 
 As they knelt at their noontide prayer, 
 
 The sunbeams seemed in a haste to twine 
 A circle about her hair. 
 
 Onward they toiled through windy pines, 
 
 By torrents a-flash with foam, 
 And compassed the crested Apennines, 
 
 And gazed on the walls of Rome. 
 
 With daily penance and prayer and psalm, 
 
 Each hallowed aisle they trod, 
 Till the restless bosom had won the calm 
 
 Of a spirit at peace with God. 
 
 And ever and aye, the twain between, 
 
 With a pure, uplifted face, 
 The blue-eyed maiden walked serene, 
 
 In her saintly, slender grace. 
 
 Their vows performed and their alms-deeds done, 
 
 Homeward their way they bent, 
 11 
 
122 THE NAMELESS PILGRIM. 
 
 And close beside, like a wimpled nun, 
 The beautiful stranger went. 
 
 And back o er the billowy Apennines, 
 
 By meadow and garth and lea, 
 Through orchards of olives and purpling vines, 
 
 They came to the surging sea. 
 
 And then, with a wave of her filmy hands, 
 As they touched the farther shore, 
 
 The maiden glided athwart the sands, 
 And they saw her face no more. 
 
 "Now what is thy thought, O mother mine? 
 
 Cried Godric marvelling thus; 
 "Whence came, whither went the form divine 
 That hath journeyed so long with us?" 
 
 Said ^Edwen, "The whither she goeth I ween 
 
 No more I wete than ye; 
 But certes, Saint Catherine s self hath been 
 
 One of the pilgrims three!" 
 
THE DUMB POET. 
 
 i. 
 HE does not wind about his thought 
 
 Iambics flexile as the willow; 
 His surge of feeling is not wrought 
 
 Into a foamy line of billow. 
 
 II. 
 His garden of Hesperides 
 
 Displays no trim-set, bounded border, 
 And o er it his Hymettian bees 
 
 Hum in mellifluous disorder. 
 
 in. 
 In rhythmic, art-constructed cells 
 
 He does not hive the Attic honey 
 He finds deep hid in darksome dells, 
 
 Or stored in clover-pastures sunny. 
 
 IV. 
 
 From evening s streaks of threaded light 
 That woof the sky with hues elysian, 
 
 123 
 
124 THE DUMB POET. 
 
 He is not skilled to weave aright 
 The iris of the poet s vision. 
 
 v. 
 The brook, soft lapsing o er the sand 
 
 In bubbling laughters, shallow d slumbers, 
 He does not pour with gauging hand 
 
 Into the jewel d cup of numbers. 
 
 VI. 
 
 He cannot strain the robin s brief, 
 One-thoughted song into a sonnet; 
 
 Nor catch the wavering maple-leaf, 
 To trace an autumn pastoral on it. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Yet never to the poet s view 
 Did liberal Nature e er discover 
 
 More of the secrets sweet and true 
 
 She tells to none but those who love her. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The break of morning holds for him 
 A joy beyond all words revealing; 
 
 And pictures, vast, mysterious, dim, 
 Illumine twilight s frescoed ceiling. 
 
THE DUMB POET. 125 
 
 IX. 
 
 Like litanies, the murmurous rain 
 
 Makes a cathedral-service solemn ; 
 He hears the myriad -voiced "Amen" 
 
 Beneath each leafy arch and column. 
 
 x. 
 
 The wheat that bows its ripen d head, 
 The meadow steeped in purple glory, 
 
 The landscape-page before him spread, 
 Are cantos of his Epic Story ! . t 
 
 XI. 
 
 From Nature, true Permessian source, 
 Wells the pure joy of feeling, seeing ; 
 
 But Love inspires the lyric force 
 That shapes the Idyl of his being. 
 
 XII. 
 
 The golden missal of the Past, 
 
 With rich illuminations burning, 
 Love blazoned it from first to last, 
 
 And see ! ... its leaves are worn with turning ! 
 
 XIII. 
 
 He lives his Poem : day by day, 
 
 Its choric chime his thought engages : 
 11* 
 
126 THE DUMB POET. 
 
 And songs of hope are stored away 
 Within the future s uncut pages. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 O my Dumb Poet, in whose soul 
 
 Love still the mystic psalm rehearses, 
 
 Make thou mine open heart thy scroll, 
 And fill it with thy marvellous verses ! 
 
THE BABY S MESSAGE. 
 
 i. 
 
 "O, IT is beautiful! Lifted so high, 
 Up where the stars are, into the sky, 
 Out of the fierce, dark grasp of pain, 
 Into the rapturous light again ! 
 
 ii. 
 
 "Whence do ye bear me, shining ones, 
 Over the dazzling paths of suns ? 
 Wherefore am I thus caught away 
 Out of my mother s arms to-day? 
 
 in. 
 
 "Never before have I left her breast, 
 Never been elsewhere rocked to rest: 
 Yet, I am wrapt in a maze of bliss, 
 Tell me what the mystery is ! " 
 
 IV. 
 
 "Baby-spirit, whose wondering eyes 
 Kindle, ecstatic with surprise, 
 
 127 
 
128 THE BABY S MESSAGE. 
 
 This is the ending of earthly breath, 
 This is what mortals mean by death. 
 
 v. 
 
 "Far in the silences of the blue, 
 See where the splendor pulses through; 
 Thither, released from a world of sin, 
 Thither we come to guide thee in: 
 
 VI. 
 
 "In through each seven-fold, circling band,- 
 In where the white child-angels stand, 
 Up to the throne, that thou mayest see 
 Him who was once a babe like thee." 
 
 VII. 
 
 "O ye seraphs of love and light! 
 Stay for a little your lofty flight: 
 Stay, and adown the star-sown track, 
 Haste to my weeper, haste ye back ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 "Tell her how filled and thrilled I am, 
 Tell her how wrapt in boundless calm: 
 Tell her I soar, I sing, I shine, 
 Tell her the heaven of heavens is mine!" 
 
THE BABY S MESSAGE. 129 
 
 IX. 
 
 "Tenderest comforter, Faith s own word, 
 Sweeter than ours, her heart hath heard : 
 Softly her solac d tears now fall ; 
 Christ s one whisper hath told her all!" 
 L 
 
ATTAINMENT. 
 
 [CARMEN NATALE.] 
 
 i. 
 RARE-RIPE, with rich, concentrate sweetness, 
 
 All girlish crudities subdued, 
 You stand to-day, in the completeness 
 
 Of your consummate womanhood. 
 
 ii. 
 
 The stem supports no useless flower, 
 No simply graceful spathic shoot; 
 
 But all, through fostering sun and shower, 
 Develops into perfect fruit. 
 
 in. 
 And this is what we looked for : Can it 
 
 Fail of such ends in Nature s law? 
 Who marvels at the full pomegranate, 
 
 That watched the blossom pure from flaw? 
 
 130 
 
ATT A INMEN T. 
 
 IV. 
 Yet something more than summer weather 
 
 Ambers the heavy-cluster d vine; 
 Fierce heats, slant rains combine together 
 
 To fill the bounteous grapes with wine. 
 
 v. 
 We heed too carelessly the uses 
 
 Of the rude buffets of the wind, 
 That vivify the quicken d juices, 
 
 And crimson-tint the fruity rind. 
 
 VI. 
 
 But while we mark the mellow d graces 
 Whose cultur d sweetness never cloys, 
 
 We yet have found that sorrow s traces 
 Are in the down-bloom, more than joy s. 
 
 VII. 
 
 We learn through trial : Tis the story 
 World-old and weary; and we know, 
 
 Though we disclaim the wisdom hoary, 
 That all our tests will prove it so. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 You ve conned the lesson: every feature 
 Is instinct with the dear-bought lore : 
 
1 3 2 A TTA INMENT. 
 
 You comprehend how far the creature 
 
 Can meet the creature s need: And more 
 
 IX. 
 
 Than this ; you ve gauged and weighed the human, 
 
 With just, deliberate, fixt control, 
 And found the perfect poise of woman, 
 
 The pivot-balance of her soul ! 
 
 x. 
 
 And thus, sustained and strengthened by it, 
 
 You front the future: Bring it balm 
 
 Or bring it bitter, no disquiet 
 Shall mar the inviolable calm. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Let the years come ! They shall but double 
 
 God s benison within your breast; 
 Nor time, nor care, nor change shall trouble 
 
 The halcyon of this central rest. 
 
THE SIGNAL. 
 
 DRAW rein there ! your horses are tramping 
 
 An orange-boy under their feet!" 
 But onward, their silver bits champing, 
 
 They swept through the roar of the street. 
 
 Wrapped softly in cashmere and laces, 
 In her phaeton a lady rolled fast, 
 
 Nor paused to know wherefore the faces 
 That turned on her, paled as she passed. 
 
 When the surges are parted that hide him, 
 
 They see on the pitiless stones 
 A child with his basket beside him, 
 
 Too wounded for shrieking or groans. 
 
 Kind arms are stretched forward to shield him, 
 Thank God that such always we see ! 
 
 And the help that they hasten to yield him 
 Is as tender as woman s would be. 
 
 12 133 
 
134 THE SIGNAL. 
 
 In the ward of a hospital lying, 
 Where never a glimmer of joy 
 
 Played over the sick and the dying, 
 The life-light came back to the boy. 
 
 No soldier in front of the battle, 
 Struck down where the terrible rain 
 
 Of shot filled his ear with its rattle, 
 Bore braver his burden of pain. 
 
 Yet how could they tell, or he ask it, 
 Nor melt with regret or alarm? 
 
 The arm that had carried his basket, 
 He must lose it, that little right arm ! 
 
 One night when the dread of it vexed him, 
 The quietest sobbings were heard; 
 
 And a child in the couch that was next him, 
 Whose innermost pity was stirred, 
 
 Broke softly the silence so stilly, 
 
 And lifting his finger, said "Hark! 
 
 There s somebody crying ! O, Willie, 
 Now why do you sob in the dark? 
 
 "I know what must happen to-morrow; 
 But haven t you heard how the Lord 
 
THE SIGNAL. 135 
 
 Takes pity on us in our sorrow, 
 
 As He walks through the hospital ward? 
 
 "So ask Him to help you whenever 
 
 His beautiful face is in sight; 
 He ll not overlook you, O, never! 
 Perhaps He is coming to-night." 
 
 A gleam of the suddenest gladness 
 
 Across the wet eye-lashes stole ; 
 And he answered, and smiled down the sadness 
 
 That just had been clouding his soul,- 
 
 "I ve heard when the children grow weary 
 
 For how can their hearts understand? 
 That they feel through the darkness so dreary, 
 As He passes, and catch at His hand. 
 
 "And He leads them away to that far light, 
 
 Where never comes sickness or woe, 
 Right up through the path of the starlight, 
 I think I will ask Him to go. 
 
 "And lest I should fail to be keeping 
 
 Strict watch, for I m tired and weak, 
 
 And Jesus might pass while I m sleeping, 
 
 Nor know that I wanted to speak; 
 
136 THE SIGNAL. 
 
 "Like a signal they raise o er the billows, 
 
 When sailors are shipwrecked, I ll prop 
 My arm that is broken, with pillows, 
 And then He will see it, and stop. 
 
 "And I ll hear through the midnight so chilly, 
 
 His voice whisper, gently and low, 
 Are you waiting to go with me, Willie? 
 And I ll answer, I m waiting to go. " 
 
 When the light of the morning had broken, 
 And the bells with a chiming accord 
 
 Were pealing their earliest token 
 
 Like a hymn through the hospital ward, 
 
 They saw, and the marvel grew deeper, 
 The pillow-propt arm was so wan : 
 
 They uncovered the face of the sleeper, 
 And wondered to find, he was gone ! 
 
UNVISITED. 
 
 HER heart was like a spring, this gentle friend s, 
 
 With ceaseless flow of heavenliest charities, 
 
 A spring upon whose brink the anemone s 
 
 And hooded violets and shrinking ferns 
 
 And tremulous woodland things crowd unafraid, 
 
 Sure of the freshening that they always find. 
 
 Her smile was prodigal of summery shine, 
 
 Gayly persistent, like a morn in June 
 
 That laughs away the clouds, and up and down 
 
 Goes making merry with the ripening grain, 
 
 That slowly ripples, its bent head drooped down, 
 
 With golden secret of the sheathed seed ; 
 
 A mischievous morn, that smites the poppies cheeks 
 
 Among the corn, till they are crimsoning 
 
 With bashful flutterings, a right prankish morn 
 
 That with a frolic flow of mirthfulness, 
 
 Kisses the bramble-blossoms till they blush. 
 
 12 * 137 
 
J 3 UNVISITED. 
 
 Yet she who loved all beauty, seeing therein 
 The human, the divine, faint lineaments, 
 Suggestions instinct with the All-Beautiful, 
 Silently slipt away, and left the flowers 
 Athirst, through missing of the moisten d cool. 
 
 Most meet it surely were for such as she, 
 
 To take her quietest sleep where all of fair, 
 
 And all of gladdest things should crowd around 
 
 To soothe and broider o er the covering sod ; 
 
 Where story-telling brook, responsive leaves, 
 
 The mossy epigraph and carvings quaint 
 
 Of cypress aisles, the solemn organ-dirge 
 
 Of the full-throated wind, the pipe and coo 
 
 Of thrushes, Nature s purest choristers, 
 
 Might mingle with the flow of children s voices, 
 
 As through their tears they smiled to read her name, 
 
 And sobbing for pity, kissed it, on the stone. 
 
 No otherwhere should heart so genial rest 
 
 Than near the tombs of kindred best-beloved, 
 
 Who hand-in-hand with her, had trod life s path, 
 
 Letting go, only at death s low lich-gate, 
 
 To clasp, the other side. And yet this heart, 
 
 So toucht with softest yearnings, moulders now 
 
 Where not one passion-flower of love sends up 
 
 The frailest tendril, where no little feet 
 
 Wear a pathetic footway round her grave 
 
UNVI SITED. *39 
 
 With daily treadings where pale memory 
 
 Can never bear her golden reliquary, 
 
 To gather the dropt blooms and hoard them close, 
 
 Heightening their odors with the balm of tears. 
 
AN ALPINE PICTURE. 
 
 [AFTER RUSKIN.] 
 
 FERNY pastures, beetling rock, 
 Slopes half-islanded by streams, 
 Glisten in the amber gleams 
 Of the sunshine, gleams that mock 
 Shadow d field and cool grey rock. 
 
 Farther up, the sobbing pines 
 
 Hold their uncontested sway, 
 
 Shutting out the smiling day 
 
 With their sullen, serried lines, 
 
 Mournful, melancholy pines ! 
 
 Through them, with eternal roar, 
 From the glaciers, thunder deep 
 Cataracts, whose tremendous leap 
 Pales them, plunging evermore 
 Shuddering through the twilight roar 
 
 140 
 
AN ALPINE PICTURE. 141 
 
 Filling with their misty cold, 
 
 All the gorges in their fall, 
 
 As athwart the granite wall 
 Which they loosen from its hold, 
 Down they shiver, blanched with cold. 
 
 Thread this craggy mountain-path 
 
 Fringed with ferns that shun the light; 
 Climb the ridg d and rugged height : 
 
 Stand within the arch that hath 
 
 Bounded in the curving path. 
 
 Dark against the whitened foam, 
 
 Rises a rude cross of pine, 
 
 Whose mysterious, sacred sign 
 Lifts the thoughts that guideless roam, 
 Skyward, through the eddying foam. 
 
 From the lichen d foothold gaze 
 Out upon the pale, far sky, 
 Where the peaks that stretch so high 
 
 Catch the roseate, dying day s 
 
 Faint-shot flushes, as you gaze. 
 
 Drop your vision fathoms down 
 Yonder cavernous abyss, 
 Where the torrents seethe and hiss, 
 
I4 2 AN ALPINE PICTURE. 
 
 And the jagged snow-crags frown, 
 Drop it like a plummet down. 
 
 Sheer along the laboring steep, 
 Where the traveller s alpenstock 
 Needs must pierce the crevic d rock, 
 Let your straining glances sweep, 
 Measuring all the toilsome steep. 
 
 Then, look up ! See how the cross 
 Casts its symbol-shade sublime 
 O er the wrack and roar of time, 
 O er its fret and moil and loss : 
 So ! ... we ll rest here, at the cross. 
 
THE COLOR-BEARER. 
 
 THE shock of battle swept the lines, 
 
 And wounded men and slain 
 Lay thick as lie in summer fields 
 
 The ridgy swathes of grain. 
 
 The deadly phalanx belched its fire, 
 
 The raking cannon pealed, 
 The lightning-flash of bayonets 
 
 Went glittering round the field. 
 
 On rushed the steady Twenty-Fourth 
 
 Against the bristling guns, 
 As if their gleams could daunt no more 
 
 Than that October sun s. 
 
 It mattered not though heads went down, 
 Though gallant steps were stayed, 
 
 Though rifles dropped from bleeding hands, 
 And ghastly gaps were made, 
 
 143 
 
144 THE COLOR-BEARER. 
 
 11 Close up!" was still the stern command, 
 
 And with unwavering tread, 
 They held right on, though well they knew 
 They tracked their way with dead. 
 
 As fast they pressed with laboring breath, 
 Clinched teeth and knitted frown, 
 
 The sharp, arrestive cry rang out, 
 "The color-bearer s down!" 
 
 Quick to the front sprang, at the word, 
 
 The youngest of the band, 
 And caught the flag still tightly held 
 
 Within the fallen hand. 
 
 With cheer he reared it high again, 
 Yet claimed one instant s pause 
 
 To lift the dying head and see 
 What comrade s face it was. 
 
 11 Forward 7" the captain shouted loud, 
 
 Still "Forward!" and the men 
 Snatched madly up the shrill command, 
 And shrieked it out again. 
 
 But like a statue stood the boy, 
 Without a foot s advance, 
 
THE COLOR-BEARER. H5 
 
 Until the captain shook his arm, 
 And roused him from his trance. 
 
 His home had flashed upon his sight, 
 
 The peaceful, sunny spot ! 
 He did not hear the crashing shells, 
 
 Nor heed the hissing shot. 
 
 He saw his mother wring her hands, 
 
 He caught his sister s shriek, 
 And sudden anguish racked his brow, 
 
 And blanched his ruddy cheek. 
 
 The touch dissolved the spell, he knew, 
 
 He felt the fearful stir; 
 He raised his head and softly said, 
 
 "He was my brother, sir!" 
 
 Then grasping firm the crimson flag 
 
 He flung it free and high, 
 While patriot-passion stanched his grief, 
 
 And drank its channels dry. 
 
 Between his close-set teeth he spake, 
 
 And hard he drew his breath, 
 "God help me, sir, I ll bear this flag 
 To victory, or to death!" 
 
THE COLOR-BEARER. 
 
 The bellowing batteries thundered on, 
 The sulph rous smoke rose higher, 
 
 And from the columns in their front, 
 Poured forth the galling fire. 
 
 But where the bullets thickest fell, 
 
 Where hottest raged the fight, 
 The steady colors tossed aloft 
 
 Their blood-red trail of light. 
 
 Firm and indomitable still 
 
 The Twenty -Fourth moved on, 
 
 A dauntless remnant only left, 
 The staunch three-score were gone ! 
 
 And now once more the shout arose 
 Which not the guns could drown, 
 
 Ho, boys! Up with the flag again! 
 The color-bearer s down!" 
 
 They strove to free his grasp, but fast 
 
 He clung with desperate will; 
 "The arm that s broken is my left, 
 
 See! I can hold it still!" 
 
 And "Forward! Twenty-Fourth !" rang out 
 Above the deafening roar, 
 
THE COLOR-BEARER. 147 
 
 Till, all at once, the colors lowered, 
 Sank, and were seen no more. 
 
 And when the stubborn fight was done, 
 
 And from the fast-held field 
 The order d remnant slow retired, 
 
 Too resolute to yield, 
 
 They found a boy whose face still wore 
 
 A look resolved and grand, 
 Who held a riddled flag close clutched 
 
 Within his shatter d hand. 
 
NINETEEN. 
 
 i. 
 
 MY maiden of the violet eyes, 
 
 White-lidded as the mists of morning, 
 
 Half clouded with a coy surprise 
 
 Their changeful, shimmering depths adorning 
 
 ii. 
 Fresh-lipped like any night-shut rose, 
 
 Beaded with youth s delicious potion, 
 And cheeks whose colour comes and goes 
 
 As comes and goes the quick emotion: 
 
 in. 
 The vernal flush of fresh nineteen, 
 
 With all its clear, auroral glory, 
 Enrobes you like a fairy queen 
 
 Within a realm of fairy story. 
 
 IV. 
 
 You breathe so rarefied an air, 
 No rainy films, no hazes seeing, 
 148 
 
NINETEEN. 149 
 
 Our sluggish pulses could not bear 
 The atmosphere that feeds your being. 
 
 v. 
 
 So golden seems the lustrous reach 
 
 Of the long summer day before you, 
 
 So boundless the aerial stretch 
 
 Of the blue heavens enchantment o er you, 
 
 VI. 
 
 You cannot know nor understand 
 
 How those pale hills so softly distant 
 
 Can steep the broad, sunshiny land 
 In shadows gradual, sure, persistent. 
 
 VII. 
 
 You comprehend that life has care; 
 
 You ve seen it oft grow grand with duty; 
 Through small attritions watched it wear, 
 
 Till shorn of all its earlier beauty : 
 
 VIII. 
 
 And you have said "It shall not be 
 
 Thus with my morning s pearly promise; 
 We need not, if we will not, see 
 
 The beautiful go drifting from us." 
 13* 
 
150 NINETEEN. 
 
 IX. 
 
 My maiden of the violet eyes, 
 Forget in faith so pure and holy, 
 
 That gloom upon the mountain lies, 
 Dusk in the gorges darkens slowly. 
 
 x. 
 
 Descend not from your aether-height 
 To meet the shadows : Let them rather 
 
 Wind low along the vales where night 
 Begins her hooded mists to gather. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Keep on your lips the fragrant dew, 
 And in your eyes the sheen so tender; 
 
 Youth s morning dawns but once, and you 
 But once can walk its rubied splendor ! 
 
WINE ON THE LEES. 
 
 " TWELVE years ago to-day : how short it seems ! 
 And but that you have calendared the time 
 Beyond disproof, I should affirm it less 
 By half a dozen, since that English June 
 Gave me the English Margaret for my wife. 
 Do you remember how we wrangled, strove, 
 Grew angry and made up a score of times, 
 Ere we made sure the memorable day 
 The golden pivot upon which should turn 
 Our circling future?" 
 
 "Ah, so like a man, 
 
 To question my remembrance ! Woman s heart 
 Is not the waxen tablet that you feign; 
 Love s stylus wears, for her, a diamond point, 
 And smoothe the plastic surface as she may, 
 It cuts into the ivory beneath, 
 And leaves its sharp, incisive characters 
 Graven there for ever. Wiser man, you see, 
 Gives love a reed to write with : there s the difference. 1 
 
 151 
 
I5 2 WINE ON THE LEES. 
 
 "My inconclusive, sweet philosopher! 
 Was it a reed I wrote with, when I scored 
 Down in my scroll of life, that Tenth of June?" 
 
 "Nay, for the nonce, I lent my diamond point: 
 Or rather, I insist it was a reed, 
 But that the tablet being a woman s heart, 
 Love s lightest mark became indelible. 
 Once groove your name upon a sapling s rind, 
 And all the erasing years of storm and shine 
 Will only greaten it, until the scar 
 Becomes exaggerate in its knotted bole : 
 And even so . . ." 
 
 "I do accept it, Sweet! 
 But memory cannot hold a mirror up 
 Clearer to you, reflecting fairly back 
 The precious nothings of that bridal-morn 
 Than now to me. How well I can recall, 
 Each sense seemed doubly keen : how full I heard 
 A lark s song, dropping from a loftier height 
 Than ever before ; and even the overmuch 
 Oppressive hawthorn-scents, and how I saw 
 The bridal-favors at your horses ears 
 A long half mile off " 
 
 "If it comes to that, 
 I knew the moment when your eye first caught 
 
WINE ON THE LEES. 153 
 
 Sight of our carriages ; you stopped to take 
 The hedge-rose offered by the cottage-girl " 
 
 "Yes! with the fair good morrow, that I thought 
 So fortunate an omen " 
 
 "That you gave 
 
 It me before our greeting, I remember ! 
 I have it yet, prest twixt our wedding-cards, 
 To show to Madge, when she is old enough: " 
 
 "And I, you know the box of sandal-wood 
 That holds my dear dead .mother s tress of hair, 
 And other precious things : this golden key 
 Here on my chain unlocks it; Well, beneath 
 Those packages of lavender d letters, tied 
 With ribbon fresh a dozen years ago, 
 I hide with jealous care, a torn, white glove. 
 Do you forget, that as we stood together 
 One moment in the porch of Thorncliffe Church, 
 Just ere we walked the aisle, you strove to draw 
 Your glove with tremulous fingers on your hand, 
 And rent it piteously? A pretty passion 
 It was to watch ! 
 
 "O, ay, I see it all! 
 You, looking down in your seigneurial calm, 
 
154 WINE ON THE LEES. 
 
 On the close-hooded falcon at your wrist, 
 For whom the jess was fastening!" 
 
 "Mock on so ! 
 
 I love to feel the flutter of your wings 
 Under my hand, full conscious all the while, 
 That did I spread it wide and bid you fly, 
 I could not shake you from your chosen perch. 
 Yet say, the truth bears thousand repetitions, 
 Say that you would not, were the power vouchsafed, 
 Stand in your still unclaimed and girlish grace 
 Free, in the porch of Thorncliffe Church again." 
 
 "So would not I: For me these years have wrought 
 To their full round all woman s experiences, 
 Wifehood most blessed, precious motherhood : 
 And so with leave to choose, I would not be, 
 From queen to peasant, aught else than what I am. 
 And yet the gift of gifts is youth : I scarce 
 Was twenty then " 
 
 "And twenty cannot be 
 
 Full-sunned, heart-savour d, mellow as thirty-two. 
 For youth s acerbities can set the teeth 
 At times on edge, its alternating airs 
 Of gust and calm, most easy to be borne 
 By lovers in patient faith, may yet become 
 Siroccos unto husbands ; its weak gauge 
 
WINE ON THE LEES. 155 
 
 Of life and life s significant loveliness, 
 
 Be reconcilement for the easy loss 
 
 Of tendril-graces that climb about the heart, 
 
 And smother it with over-flush of bloom. 
 
 Give me then, summer with the sheen of spring, 
 
 The tropic fruit, inclusive of the flower, 
 
 Noon with the dew still on it, progressive years, 
 
 With childhood s zest, an t please you, thirty-two ! 
 
 "But see, the veil of woven gold pales off 
 The sunset hills; and now before our Madge 
 Comes clamoring for her nightly cradle-song, 
 Or Harry with his tangled paradigms 
 Beseeches furtherance with amo, amare, 
 Let loose your fingers on the ivory keys, 
 And sing the snatch I scribbled you yesterday." 
 
 " Fill the jewel-crusted beaker 
 
 From the earliest vine; 
 Gather grapes, ambrosia-fruited, 
 And express their wine : 
 
 "Honey d, lucent, amber-tinted; 
 
 Could old Massic shine 
 With a foam whose beaded opals 
 Sunnier globes enshrine? 
 
156 WINE ON THE LEES. 
 
 "When did ivy-crown d Bacchante" 
 
 Warmer clusters twine 
 Round a Ganymedian chalice? 
 Yet these lips of mine 
 
 "Sometimes crave a racier vintage, 
 
 Sometimes dare to pine 
 For that wondrous, witching essence, 
 Orient muscadine, 
 
 "Balmed with immemorial richness, 
 
 Like a royal line, 
 Such as slumbrous decades ripen 
 Through their long decline. 
 
 "Hence then, young love s pearl-rimm d flagon! 
 
 Keep the pale-flusht wine;,. 
 Earth it, till its juices fruiten 
 Till the lees refine; 
 
 "Till each tinge of harshness mellows, 
 
 Till all sweets combine 
 To prepare a draught quintessent, 
 Rapturous, pure, divine ! 
 
A YEAR IN HEAVEN. 
 
 i. 
 A YEAR uncalendar d ; for what 
 
 Hast thou to do with mortal time? 
 Its dole of moments entereth not 
 
 That circle, infinite, sublime, 
 Whose unreached centre is the throne 
 
 Of Him before whose awful brow 
 Meeting eternities are known 
 
 As but an everlasting Now! 
 The thought uplifts thee far away, 
 
 Too far beyond my love and tears; 
 Ah, let me hold thee as I may, 
 
 And count thy time by earthly years. 
 
 ii . 
 A year of blessedness, wherein 
 
 No faintest cloud hath crost thy soul ; 
 No throe of pain, no taint of sin, 
 
 No frail mortality s control : 
 
 14 157 
 
158 A YEAR IN HEAVEN. 
 
 Nor once hath disappointment stung, 
 
 Nor care, world-weary, made thee pine ; 
 But rapture such as human tongue 
 
 Hath found no language for, is thine. 
 Made perfect at thy passing, who 
 
 Dare sum thine added glory now, 
 As onward, upward, pressing through 
 
 The ranks that with veiled faces bow, 
 Ascending still from height to height, 
 
 Fearless where, hush d, the" seraphs trod, 
 Unfaltering midst the circles bright, 
 
 Thou tendest inward unto God? 
 
 in. 
 A year of progress in the lore 
 
 That is not learned on earth : Thy mind, 
 Unclogged of clay, and free to soar, 
 
 Hath left the realms of doubt behind. 
 And mysteries which thy finite thought 
 
 In vain essayed to solve, appear 
 To thine untasked inquiries fraught 
 
 With explanation strangely clear. 
 Thy reason owns no forced control 
 
 As held it here in needful thrall, 
 God s secrets court thy questioning soul, 
 
 And <thou may st search and know them all. 
 
A YEAR IN HEAVEN. 159 
 
 IV. 
 A year of love ; Thy yearning heart 
 
 Was always tender even to tears, 
 And sympathy s responsive art 
 
 Lent its warm coloring to thy years : 
 But love whose wordless ecstasy 
 
 Had overborne the finite, now 
 Throbs through thy saintly purity, 
 
 And burns upon thy dazzling brow. 
 For thou the hands dear clasp hast felt 
 
 That show the nail-prints still displayed, 
 And thou before the face hast knelt 
 
 That wears the scars the thorns have made. 
 
 v. 
 A year without thee : I had thought 
 
 My orphan d heart would break and die, 
 Ere time had meek quiescence wrought, 
 
 Or soothed the tears it could not dry. 
 And yet I live, to faint, to groan, 
 
 To stagger with the woe I bear, 
 To miss thee so ! to moan and moan 
 
 The name I dare not breathe in prayer ! 
 Thou praising, while I weakly pine, 
 
 Enraptured, while I sorrow sore, 
 And thus betwixt thy soul and mine 
 
 The distance widening evermore ! 
 
160 A TEAR IN HEAVEN. 
 
 VI. 
 A year of tears to me ; to thee, 
 
 The end of thy probation s strife, 
 The archway to eternity, 
 
 The portal of thy deathless life : 
 To me, the corse, the bier, the sod, 
 
 To thee, the palm of victory given : 
 Enough, my bruised heart ! Thank God 
 
 That thou hast been a year in heaven ! 
 
AFTERNOON. 
 
 I. 
 
 You say the years have sadder grown 
 
 Beneath their weight of care and duty, 
 
 That all the festive grace has flown 
 That garlanded their earlier beauty. 
 
 II. 
 
 You tell me Hope no more can daze 
 Your vision with her bland delusions; 
 
 Nor Fancy, versed in subtle ways, 
 Seduce you to her gay conclusions. 
 
 in. 
 The rapturous throb, the bound, the flush, 
 
 That made all life one strong sensation, 
 Grow quiet now beneath the hush 
 
 Of time s profounder revelation. 
 
 I** L 161 
 
1 62 AFTERNOON. 
 
 IV. 
 
 You have it still, the inviolate past, 
 
 So pure from all illusive glitter, 
 So luminous-clear from first to last, 
 
 With scarce the needful dash of bitter. 
 
 v. 
 Vixi : Thus, looking back, you write; 
 
 The best that life can give, you ve tasted; 
 And drop by drop, translucent, bright, 
 
 You ve sipped and drained; not one is wasted. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Yet not in retrospect your eye 
 
 Alone sees pathways pied with flowers ; 
 
 You knew, the while the hours flew by, 
 They were supremely blissful hours. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The sun slopes slowly westering still, 
 Behind you now your shadow lengthens, 
 
 And in the vale beneath the hill 
 
 The evening s growing purple strengthens. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The morning mists that swam your eye, 
 Too vaguely wrapped your young ideal: 
 
AFTERNOON. 163 
 
 Now, cut against your clearer sky, 
 You comprehend the true the real. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Life still has joys that do not pall, 
 
 Love still has hours serene and tender: 
 
 Tis afternoon, dear ! . . . that is all ! 
 And this is afternoon s calm splendor. 
 
 x. 
 
 God grant your cloudless orb may run 
 Long, golden cycles ere we sever; 
 
 Or, like the northern midnight-sun, 
 Circle with light my heart for ever! 
 
POOR CARLOTTA. 
 
 THE scion of immemorial lines, 
 
 August with histories hoary, 
 Whose grand, imperial heirship shines 
 
 With the starriest names of story, 
 Stands doomed to die : and the grenadiers 
 
 In serried and silent column, 
 Their pitiless eyes half-hazed with tears, 
 
 Are waiting the signal solemn. 
 
 The brave young Emperor lifts his brow, 
 
 It never has shown so regal; 
 Yet it is not the pride of the Hapsburg now, 
 
 Nor the glance of the clefted eagle. 
 No blazing coronet binds his head, 
 
 No ermined purple is round him; 
 But his manhood s majesty instead 
 
 With royaller rank has crowned him. 
 
 An instant s space he is caught away 
 To Schonbrunn s peaceful bowers; 
 
 164 
 
POOR CARLOTTA. 165 
 
 There s a lightning-dazzle of boyhood s day, 
 
 Vienna s glittering towers 
 Flash back with a mocking, blinding glare ; 
 
 To barter such princely splendor, 
 For wrecked ambition and stark despair, 
 
 Betrayal and base surrender ! 
 
 Wild, infinite, taunting memories thrill 
 
 His soul to its molten centre; 
 Remorses that madden him, clamor still, 
 
 But he will not let them enter. 
 The grovelling traffic of time all done, 
 
 He would have the temple lonely . . . 
 Its sanctuaries emptied one by one, 
 
 That God may fill it only. 
 
 But under the Austrian skies afar, 
 
 Aglow with a light elysian, 
 The mullion d windows of Miramar 
 
 Loom out on his tortured vision : 
 He looks on its grey abeles again; 
 
 He is threading its pleached alleys; 
 He is guiding his darling s slacken d rein, 
 
 As they scour the dimpled valleys. 
 
 ... He can gaze his last on the earth and sky, 
 Step forth to his doom, nor shiver, 
 
1 66 POOR CARLOTTA. 
 
 Eternity front his steadfast eye, 
 
 And never a muscle quiver : 
 But love s heart-rackings, despairs and tears 
 
 Wrench the fixt lips asunder; 
 My poor Carlotta /" Now, grenadiers, 
 
 Your volley may belch its thunder ! 
 
THE COMPLAINT OF SANTA GLAUS 
 
 THE snow lies deep on the frozen ground, 
 
 And the Christmas-night is cold, 
 And I shiver before the rime so hoar, 
 
 Can it be I am growing old ? 
 
 Long years agone, when the Christmas chimes 
 
 Made merry the midnight sky; 
 When the carollers call filled house and hall, 
 
 And wassail and mirth ran high ; 
 
 When harlequin mummers reveled and danced, 
 And the great Yule-log blazed bright ; 
 
 And the walls were green with a summer sheen, 
 In holly and yew bedight ; 
 
 When the faces of all, the young, the old, 
 Were brimming with sparkling cheer, 
 
 Ay, those were the times when Christmas chimes 
 Were the merriest sounds of the year ! 
 
 167 
 
1 68 THE COMPLAINT OF SANTA CLAUS. 
 
 I snapped my fingers in Jack Frost s teeth, 
 While the snow was wavering down, 
 
 And the icicles flung from my beard that hung, 
 My beard that was then so brown, 
 
 And I wrapped myself in my grizzly coat, 
 
 And lit my pipe with a coal 
 From Hecla s crest, where I stopped to rest 
 
 On my way from the Northern Pole. 
 
 My reindeers O they were brisk and gay ! 
 
 My sledge, it could stand a pull ; 
 My pack though great, seemed a feather s weight, 
 
 No matter how crammed and full. 
 
 My heart, it was stout in those good old days, 
 
 And warm with an inward glee; 
 For I thought of the mirths of a thousand hearths, 
 
 Where the little ones watched for me. 
 
 So I gathered my sweets from far and near, 
 
 And I piled my cunningest toys, 
 (Unheeding the swirls) for the innocent girls, 
 
 And the rollicking, roguish boys. 
 
 But the times have sobered and changed since then, 
 My merriment flags forlorn; . 
 
THE COMPLAINT OF SANTA CLAUS. 169 
 
 My beard is as white as on Christmas-night 
 Of old was the Glaston thorn. 
 
 Though my wither d lips still hold the pipe, 
 
 No longer the smoke-wreath curls; 
 But saddest to see of sights for me, 
 
 My frolicsome boys and girls 
 
 Have grown so knowing they dare to say 
 
 These Protestants wise and small, 
 That all saints deceive, and they don t believe 
 
 In a Santa Claus at all ! 
 
 Ah me! Tis a fateful sound to hear; . 
 
 Tis gall in my wassail-cup: 
 The darlings I ve spoiled, so wrought-for and toiled, 
 
 The children have given me up ! 
 
 My heart is broken; I ll break my pipe, 
 
 And my tinkling team may go, 
 And bury my sledge on the trackless edge 
 
 Of a Lapland waste of snow. 
 
 My useless pack I will fling away, 
 
 And in Germany s forests hoar, 
 From the icy steep I will plunge leagues deep, 
 
 And never be heard of more. 
 
 15 
 
UNREASON. 
 
 i. 
 
 WHEN the far port is neared at last, 
 And underneath the storm-tost feet 
 That trod the deck through Tropics heat, 
 And Norland winter s iciest blast, 
 The firm, sure earth is anchored fast, 
 We give the voyager All hail ! 
 Thou, anchored safe within the veil, 
 Chide not, because athwart the foam 
 That beats betwixt me and thy home, 
 Weeping to miss thy vanished sail, 
 I find no voice to cry "All hail!" 
 
 ii. 
 
 Shall he who wrought with tireless hands, 
 That only slackened when the seed, 
 Sown with such self-contemning heed, 
 Seemed but to parch on barren sands, 
 Not shout the harvest-home, when bands 
 Of reapers dot the meadow-lands? 
 
 170 
 
UNREASON. 171 
 
 Thou, with thy bosom filled with sheaves. 
 
 Gathered through toiling morns and eves, 
 May st see me glean adust, behind, 
 Sore-sad of heart that thou shalt bind 
 
 Never again the summer sheaves. 
 
 in. 
 When some dear exile whose sharp pain 
 
 Of banishment we ve sickened o er, 
 
 Is free to seek his patriot shore, 
 And where his childhood s cheek hath lain, 
 Sobs out his crazy joy again, 
 
 Who weeps for grief? I, even I ! 
 
 The wanderer finds his native sky, 
 The sower counts his garner d grain, 
 The banished hails his home again, 
 
 Glad, thankful, rapturous: Yet, I sigh 
 
 Inconsolate, yea, even I ! 
 
THE LEGEND OF ATHELNEY, 
 
 ONE desolate, chill December, 
 Twas hundreds of years ago, 
 
 The moors and the marish fen-lands 
 Were dreary and waste with snow : 
 
 And fiercely the wolfish tempest 
 Howled on the rock-ribb d shore, 
 
 And the heart of the Saxon people 
 Was numb to the inmost core. 
 
 For the noble and good King Alfred, 
 Whose prowess and toils and pains 
 
 Had shielded and kept the kingdom, 
 And banished the cruel Danes, 
 
 Discomfited now and reaven 
 
 Of province and royal stead, 
 A nameless fugitive wandered 
 
 Seeking his daily bread. 
 172 
 
THE LEGEND OF ATHELNET. 173 
 
 Twas a Yule-tide eve; and the fagots 
 That blazed on the earthen floor, 
 
 Flung over the bleak morasses 
 
 A glint through the low-brow d door; 
 
 A glint that across the levels 
 
 Flared like a cresset-light, 
 That beaconed belated footsteps 
 
 Over the drifts of white. 
 
 Cowering beside the embers, 
 
 The King of the Saxon land 
 Read from the sacred Gospel 
 
 Holden within his hand: 
 
 Read how the Eastern mages 
 
 Found in the oxen s stall 
 Jesus the son of Mary, 
 
 The Lord and the King of all ; 
 
 Read of the Bethlehem shepherds, 
 Of the strange and marvellous sights 
 
 That greeted their upturned faces 
 That first of the Christmas-nights. 
 
 And the heart of the King was melted, 
 And he uttered a lonely sigh; 
 
 15* 
 
174 THE LEGEND OF ATHELNEY. 
 
 "A Prince, yet a houseless exile, 
 An outcast, even as I ! " 
 
 But still as he pondered the pages, 
 
 Or ever he was aware, 
 This tenderest Christmas-story 
 
 Softened his sharp despair. 
 
 With a cheerier look he lifted 
 
 His eyes from the beaten floor, 
 And behold, a gaunt-limb d beggar 
 Sought alms at the wide-set door. 
 
 "Now what is there for bestowal? 
 
 Good mother, beseech thee, see; 
 For sore is the need that seeketh 
 
 The succor of Athelney." 
 
 And the goodwife answered quickly, 
 "There is left no dole to make, 
 
 Nor a crumb of bread remaineth, 
 Save only an oaten cake. 
 
 "And the henchmen who seek the forest 
 
 Athwart the dismal wold, 
 May fail of the wished-for quarry, 
 Or perish amid the cold : 
 
THE LEGEND OF ATHELNET. 175 
 
 "And belike we shall starve, my master " 
 
 "Good mother, I pray, not so! 
 Who findeth the finch his berries 
 
 When they re hidden beneath the snow? 
 
 "I read in the holy Gospel, 
 
 With the story mine eyes are dim, 
 That for us our Lord left heaven; 
 Is there naught we may do for Him? 
 
 "When we know that the cruse is empty, 
 
 And hungry and faint, we feel 
 Twixt us and death there is only 
 A morsel of scanty meal, 
 
 " Then is the season for giving; 
 
 And so, for the Lord s sweet sake, 
 Succor His needy kinsman, 
 Break him the oaten cake: 
 
 "Looking to Him to feed us, 
 
 Sure that the deed is right; 
 Thankful an act of mercy 
 
 Can hallow our Christmas-night." 
 
 As asleep on his goat-skin pillow 
 Next morn King Alfred lay, 
 
176 THE LEGEND OF ATHELNEY. 
 
 He dreamed that he talked with Jesus, 
 And he hearkened and heard Him say;- 
 
 "Now honor be thine, and blessing 
 
 And power and great degree; 
 Inasmuch to the least thou didst it, 
 Thou didst it even to me." 
 
 And when in the wintry gloaming 
 The dreamer unclosed his eyes, 
 
 The vision that met them, filled them 
 With a mist of glad surprise. 
 
 For there lay on the floor full-antler d, 
 A buck in his fairest prime : 
 
 So, with plenty and cheer right royal, 
 They welcomed the Christmas-time. 
 
 When spring from the daisied pastures 
 Had routed the leaden gloom, 
 
 And the reaches of sedgy fen-land 
 
 Were green with the gorse and broom,- 
 
 At the head of a new-found army 
 
 King Alfred rode amain, 
 And hunted from court and castle 
 
 The fierce marauding Dane. 
 
THE LEGEND OF ATHELNEY. 
 
 And he hid in his heart the lesson, 
 
 Midst the pride of his high degree, 
 Which the Christmas-tide had taught him 
 
 In the fens of Athelney. 
 M 
 
ALL S WELL. 
 
 "Post number one: All s well: Post number two: All s 
 well : And so the assuring cry goes the circuit of the camp." 
 Officer s Note-Book. 
 
 "ALL S WELL" How the musical sound 
 
 Smites, surge-like, the slumbering ear, 
 As the sentinel paces his round, 
 
 And carols his tidings of cheer ! 
 Half-startled, the soldier awakes, 
 Recalling his senses that roam : 
 Tis only a moment it breaks 
 
 On the dream he was dreaming of home : 
 "All s well!" 
 
 "All s well 7" Through the lengthening lines 
 
 Each sentry re-echoes the word, 
 And faintly yon forest of pines 
 With dreamy responses is stirred : 
 
 178 
 
ALL S WELL. 1 79 
 
 On the marge of the nebulous night, 
 
 A wavy, reiterate sigh, 
 It ripples, then vanishes quite 
 
 In the infinite deeps of the sky : 
 
 "At/ s well!" 
 
 " Air s well !" In the warfare of life 
 
 Does my soul like a sentinel stand, 
 Prepared to encounter the strife, 
 
 With well-burnish d weapon in hand? 
 While the senses securely repose, 
 
 And doubt and temptation have room, 
 Does the keen ear of conscience unclose ? 
 
 Does she listen, and catch through the gloom : 
 "AWs well?" 
 
 "All s well!" Can I echo the word? 
 Does faith with a sleepless control 
 Bid the peaceful assurance be heard 
 
 In the questionless depths of my soul ? 
 Then fear not, frail heart ! when the scars 
 
 Of the brave-foughten combat are past, 
 Clear voices that fall from the stars 
 Will quiet thee on to the last: 
 
 "Att s well!" 
 
THE SCHOLAR S HAUNTS 
 
 i. 
 WHEN the dreaming scholar ponders 
 
 O er the wondrous tomes of yore, 
 Till his mind bewildered wanders, 
 
 And his dazed eye heeds no more ; 
 
 ii. 
 When with forces spent and jaded, 
 
 And with senses overstrained ; 
 Foiled, eluded and upbraided 
 
 By the phantom-goal ungained : 
 
 in. 
 When the fever d spirit flutters 
 
 In some tangled labyrinth caught, 
 Conscious that the thought it utters 
 
 Leaves unsaid the higher thought ; 
 
 ISO 
 
THE SCHOLAR S HAUNTS. 181 
 
 IV. 
 
 Let him close the misty volume, 
 
 And the crabbed page of eld ; 
 Life has many a worthier column 
 
 In its unread archives held. 
 
 v. 
 
 Searching after buried treasures, 
 
 At his feet he overlooks 
 Simpler wisdom, sweeter pleasures 
 
 Than are prest away in books. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Not in mansion d streets whose crowded 
 
 Human tides go roaring by ; 
 Where the brows he meets are clouded, 
 
 And eye answers not to eye : 
 
 VII. 
 
 Not where false and garish graces 
 Mock him with their gilden shows, 
 
 Where unspiritual faces 
 
 Flaunt the lily and the rose : 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Not where avarice turns its neighbor 
 Coldly from the half-shut door; 
 
 lu 
 
1 82 THE SCHOLAR S HAUNTS. 
 
 Not where grind the wheels of labor, 
 Can he learn this fresher lore. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Let him seek the wooded alleys 
 Where the flocking ferns abide, 
 
 Let him pace the cloistral valleys 
 Where the bluest gentians hide: 
 
 x. 
 
 Read the lichen-missal d ledges, 
 Scan the log-books of the streams, - 
 
 Till, with thought a-sail, the sedges 
 Float him to the land of dreams : 
 
 XI. 
 
 Mid the forest-porches linger, 
 Conning Nature s curious art, 
 
 Near enough to lay his ringer 
 On the pulses of her heart. 
 
 XII. 
 
 What a tranquil, chasten d beating ! 
 
 Good and ill there wage no strife, 
 Such as surges tvvixt the meeting 
 
 Ebbs and flows of human life. 
 
THE SCHOLAR S HAUNTS, 183 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Here he ll breathe the strengthening essence 
 
 Of a purer, loftier clime ; 
 Here he ll learn sublimer lessons 
 
 Than from all the stores of Time. 
 
UNDER THE ELMS. 
 
 "So sad it is," she said, and sat her down 
 In the old seat; "So more than sad, to take 
 For guide, pale Memory, and retrace again 
 With her, the paths the trailing years have worn ; 
 And in the haunted spots she points us out, 
 Wait to recount who sat beside us there, 
 And listen while she tells us of the Hours 
 That trooped before us hand in hand with Joy. 
 
 * i How freshly to my sight they stand again, 
 Those dear companions of my morning-time, 
 In the familiar spots ! I seem to hear 
 Like a refrain, chime silverly their laughter, 
 In rhythmic chorus to their tuneful -hearts: 
 The youth with quenchless purpose in his eye ; 
 The heyday girl, her grace but half unmasked ; 
 The kind old man whose hands seemed always stretched 
 In benediction, matron d womanhood, 
 
 184 
 
UNDER THE ELMS. 185 
 
 And gay-eyed, flossy-headed little ones. 
 I turn to clasp them each, but my strain d arms 
 On phantasms close; and only then I find 
 Twas a mirage that Memory had evoked 
 Wherewith to tantalize my crazy vision. 
 And then upon my cheated heart comes back 
 With sense too real, that saddest consciousness, 
 That only thus can I behold again, 
 Ever again, the faces that are gone ! 
 
 "Mysteriously," she sighed "an unseen hand 
 Cuts at a stroke the thousand precious cords 
 Whose twisting Love had labored at for years. 
 And they who seemed a portion of ourselves, 
 Whose eyes glassed back to us our very thoughts, 
 Whose souls we knew by heart, as holy psalms 
 Learned from our mother s lips, are loosed away, 
 Snatched out of sight : and in the agony 
 And rupture, we forget to look aloft, 
 Where the freed spirit has cleaved the open sky, 
 Hugging instead, the cage it left behind. 
 
 "And so," she said "for balming of my heart, 
 Next it I ll lay this truth: That God s dear hand, 
 That spares to waste the smallest filament 
 Of beauty that redeems the leaden hue 
 
 16 * 
 
1 86 UNDER THE ELMS. 
 
 Of this toogravely-textur d weft of ours, 
 Will gather together at last these golden strands 
 And weave them, in His marvellous tenderness, 
 Into the garments that we wear above." 
 
ANTONIO ORIBONI. 
 
 i. 
 
 IN grey Spielburg s dreary fortress, buried from the light 
 of day, 
 
 From the bounteous, liberal sunshine, and the prodigal 
 breeze s play, 
 
 Where no human sounds could reach him, save the 
 mocking monotones 
 
 Of the sentinel whose footsteps trod the dismal court 
 yard stones 
 
 Lay the young and knightly victim of the Austrian 
 despot s law, 
 
 Worn with slow, consuming sickness, on his meagre 
 bed of straw. 
 
 ii. 
 Oft he strove to press his forehead with his pallid hand, 
 
 in vain, 
 
 For the wrist so thin and pulseless could not lift the 
 burdening chain : 
 
 187 
 
1 88 ANTONIO ORIBONI. 
 
 Though his lips were parched to frenzy, while the 
 
 quenchless fever raged, 
 They had halved the stint of water, lest his thirst 
 
 might be assuaged ; 
 And because his morbid hunger loathed the mouldy 
 
 food they thrust 
 Through the gratings of his dungeon, they had even 
 
 withheld the crust. 
 
 
 
 in. 
 Snatched from country, home and kindred, from his 
 
 immemorial sky 
 Rich with summer s lavish leafage, they had flung him 
 
 here to die; 
 Not because through perjur d witness they had stained 
 
 his noble name, 
 Not because their jealous malice could adduce one deed 
 
 of shame ; 
 But he learned to think that freedom was a guerdon 
 
 cheaply bought 
 By the lives of slaughter d heroes, and ... he dared 
 
 to speak the thought! 
 
 IV. 
 
 And for this, for this they thrust him where no arm 
 
 might reach to save, 
 And with youth s hot pulses thronging, sunk him in a 
 
 living grave : 
 
ANTONIO OR IB ON I. 189 
 
 Strove to stifle in a dungeon under piled centurial 
 stone, 
 
 Titan-thoughts whose heaving shoulders might upturn 
 the tyrant s throne; 
 
 Mother-land ! thou heard st his groaning, and for 
 every tear he poured, 
 
 Thou hast summoned forth a hero, armed with Free 
 dom s vengeful sword ! 
 
 v. 
 
 Through the dragging years he wasted, for the flesh 
 will still succumb, 
 
 Though the inexorable spirit hold the lips sublimely 
 dumb, 
 
 And he yearned to clasp his brothers, enter the old 
 trellised door, 
 
 Fall upon his mother s bosom, kiss his father s hand 
 once more, 
 
 Till he murmured, as the vision swam before his fever 
 ish eye, 
 
 "O to hear their pitying voices break in blessings ere 
 I die! 
 
 VI. 
 
 "Thou who shrank st with human shrinking, even as I, 
 
 and thrice did st pray 
 
 If t were possible the anguish from Thy lips might 
 pass away 
 
19 ANTONIO ORIBONI. 
 
 Lift this maddening, torturing pressure, seal this strug 
 gling, panting breath, 
 
 Let Thy mercy cheat man s vengeance, lead me out 
 to peace through death : 
 
 Rend aside this fleshy fastness, shiver this soul-canker 
 ing strife, 
 
 Turn the key, Thou Blessed Warder, break the cruel 
 bolt of life!" 
 
 VII. 
 
 In the deep and ghostly midnight, as the lonely cap 
 tive lay 
 
 Gasping in the silent darkness, longing for the dusk 
 of day, 
 
 Burst a flood of light celestial through the rayless 
 prison-cell, 
 
 And an angel hovering o er him, toucht his shackles, 
 and they fell; 
 
 And the wondering, tranced spirit, every thrall of 
 bondage past, 
 
 Dropt the shatter d chains that held it, and sprang up 
 ward, freed at last. 
 
ARTIST-WORK. 
 
 WIFE. 
 
 "THE theme includes a lesson I need to learn; 
 Old Leonardo, with his grand grey head 
 And patriarchal beard, day after day, 
 Sitting within the Milan market-place, 
 A-search among that humanest of crowds, 
 To find some face that he might glorify 
 With his rare art, until the rustic hind 
 Looked from his canvas, a divine Saint John. 
 
 "I ll paint the portrait with Correggio s charm 
 Of light and shade ; the meditative brow 
 Furrowed with thought, the isolated air, 
 The impassive look that masks the life within, 
 Till the old Master lives upon my page, 
 As once among these Milanese. About him 
 I ll group the common folk that come and go; 
 The brawny-arm d, red-turban d fisherman, 
 
1 9 2 AR TIS T- WORK. 
 
 The chestnut-vender, with his scowling glare, 
 
 (A hint of Judas in his sinister eye) 
 
 The mother, who mild-fac d, looks smiling down, 
 
 A possible Madonna, on the child 
 
 That grasps her finger : innocent flower-maidens, 
 
 And gossips rusty as the wares they sell. 
 
 " Twas genius beckoned (I ll show) when Leonardo 
 Behind him shut, left on the cold, dead wall, 
 The forms for which his querulous fancy found 
 No models, and sought along life s beaten paths 
 New source of power. I ll make it clear, that he, 
 Who with unwise, self-centred introspection, 
 Paints from the airy beings of his brain, 
 Fails, and is never loyal to the truth ; 
 That whoso would know aught of Nature s moods, 
 Must bring his palette forth, and in clear day, 
 Before her open face, match all his hues, 
 The pearly shades of cumulated clouds, 
 The skyey spaces, tinct with changeful blue, 
 The mountain dreaming on the horizon s rim, 
 And all sweet mysteries of this grey-green earth, 
 Not learned beneath close roofs. Thus will I teach 
 The lesson thumbed so oft, that we must look 
 About our feet for fit material 
 
 Wherewith to mould high theme ; that the strait life, 
 Hemming us round, has rich suggestiveness, 
 
A R TIS T- WORK. 1 93 
 
 That even the homeliest office of the hour, 
 If duty but refine and lift it up, 
 Demanding for its terms of service, small 
 Renunciations, strict self-disciplines, 
 Compliances that thwart our inner wish, 
 Darling, you there? Ah, I remember now . . . 
 1 The buttons ! My Poem, Household Priestesses, 
 Detained me . . . Why, he s gone without a word ! 
 Below I hear him whistling to his dogs ; 
 Yonder he stops beneath the apple-tree, 
 Jacket unbutton d, and his voice drifts thither; 
 W lat is he singing?" 
 
 HUSBAND. 
 
 "Carolling lark, so high, so high, 
 
 Swallowed in sky, 
 Floating a fairy, airy mote, 
 Earthward dropping a liquid note, 
 
 Flutily clear, 
 Such as it ravishes hearts to hear; 
 
 Out of sight, as a star withdrawn 
 Into the dawn, 
 
 Blotted away from mortal view, 
 
 Drowned in limitless voids of blue, 
 Never to be 
 
 Aught but a creature of air to me ! 
 17 N 
 
194 ARTIST-WORK. 
 
 Never to stoop from flight so broad, 
 Down to the sod 
 
 Where you fashioned a grassy nest; 
 
 Tis too lowly a place of rest : 
 
 Twitterers there, 
 
 Chirp, but you heed not, high in air. 
 
 Tame little blue-bird, piping sweet, 
 Here at my feet, 
 
 Merrily chirruping all day long 
 
 Only for me: With such a song 
 
 Wherefore should I 
 
 Care for the warble that floods the sky ! 
 
 WIFE. 
 
 Yes, so man puts it! Let him be the lark 
 To spring straight upward from the trampled grass, 
 To fan the dampness from his outstretcht wings, 
 To leave the wrangling fledglings far below, 
 And, full abreast the rapturous air, to soar 
 Unhindered, wasting all his fervid soul 
 Upon the heedless breeze ; and when, well-tired, 
 To drop down slowly to the clover-nest, 
 Where all the hours his mate has fed their brood 
 In patient love, oblivious of the sky 
 Or air, or sun ! And who so bold as dare 
 
AR TIS T- WORK. 1 95 
 
 Make question of the fitnesses of things? 
 Yet, as true woman and wife, I would far rather 
 Be a brown sparrow pecking from his hand, 
 If so it please him best, than even entrance 
 A thousand other listeners with my song. 
 
 "But what, my little scholar? . . . Sigh you too 
 Over lost buttons?" 
 
 CHILD. 
 
 "Mother, I am come to ask 
 
 That you ll help me to decline 
 These exceptions : Such a task ! 
 And I cannot read a line. 
 
 "What does hoc officium mean? 
 
 Here is facer e to do ; 
 With this verb that comes between 
 Tis a puzzle to construe. 
 
 "And this mythologic stuff; 
 
 What s the good of it, to know 
 How ill-natur d, odious, gruff, 
 Those old gods were long ago? 
 
 "Then these sums, they vex me yet, 
 Rule of Two, or Rule of Three, 
 
1 96 AR TIS T- WORK. 
 
 Which is proper? I forget, 
 For it s quite all one to me. 
 
 What s an equinoctial line? 
 
 What s a zone, a parallel? 
 Mother dear, will you define? 
 For I m sure /cannot tell!" 
 
 MOTHER. 
 
 " Come hither, child, and let me kiss all smooth 
 Those whimpering lips ! They win me back again 
 From the inane ambitions I have nursed, 
 To graver, holier, purer ministrations 
 Than service of art. They teach, that cloister d 
 
 thought, 
 
 Hours winnowed of care, soft-cultur d, studious ease, 
 Days hedged from interruption, and withdrawn 
 Inviolate from household exigence, 
 Are not for women, and least for wives and mothers ; 
 That Leonardo-like, they still must sit 
 Amidst the jostling stir of clamorous life, 
 And catch suggestions of the beautiful, 
 For Love, true Artist, to idealize 
 In living frescoes on the walls of home." 
 
LEFT BEHIND. 
 
 i. 
 I CANNOT chide away the pain, 
 
 I cannot bid the throb be still, 
 That aches and aches through heart and brain, 
 
 And leaves them pulsing to the thrill 
 Of overmastering memories. They 
 
 Who never saw the eyelids close, 
 Beneath whose shadowing fringes lay 
 
 All that had given to life repose, 
 Or charm, or hope, or ease, or joy, 
 
 Or love clear molten from alloy, 
 Who have not, tear-blind, watched the breath 
 
 That only breathed to bless them, come 
 
 Slower and fainter, till the dumb 
 Unanswering lips grew white with death, 
 They cannot know, by grief untaught, 
 
 What an unfathomed depth I find, 
 Of ebbless anguish in the thought 
 
 That I am left behind. 
 17 * 197 
 
LEFT BEHIND. 
 
 II. 
 
 What matters it that other eyes 
 
 Have smiles to give me just as sweet, 
 Or softly other tongues repeat 
 
 Endearments of as gentle guise ? 
 
 I only feel that whatsoe er 
 
 Its melting tenderness may be, 
 
 Tis not the smile whose gracious cheer 
 Was more than all the world to me : 
 
 I only feel though winning-kind 
 Is every word that voice may say, 
 Tis not the one that passed away 
 
 When I was left behind. 
 
 in. 
 I know, I know that as of yore, 
 
 Nature is festive in her mirth ; 
 That still the sunshine shimmers through 
 The infinite, palpitating blue, 
 
 As goldenly as heretofore : 
 I know this green and billowy earth 
 
 Tides underneath the smile of God, 
 As to the moonlight tides the sea; 
 I m wounded by the mocking glee, 
 
 I m hurt by all the joy abroad. 
 
LEFT BEHIND. 199 
 
 The smiting blow that grief has given, 
 So jars the mirror of my mind, 
 
 That everything of sweet or fair, 
 
 Has but distorted reflex there; 
 And O the tears, the tears, like rain 
 Upon its surface leave their stain, 
 
 Since my Beloved went to heaven, 
 Since I was left behind ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 There is a Hand that can restore 
 
 The spirit s equipoise, till true, 
 In faith s unwavering light once more, 
 
 His image trembles back to view. 
 Dear Christ ! when there Thy form appears, 
 Let me not blot it with my tears, 
 
 That are not murmuring tears, though sad; 
 I would be patient, I would find 
 
 How much the thought can reconcile, 
 Can lift me up and make me glad, 
 
 That only for a little while 
 Shall I be left behind. 
 
THE BELLS OF BRIENNE.* 
 
 THE setting sun was slanting red 
 
 Across the battle plain, 
 As slackening bit, the Emperor 
 
 Surveyed the heaps of slain. 
 
 He gazed with hard, impassive eye 
 
 Upon the carnage spread, 
 Nor made account of dying moans, 
 
 Nor saw the piled-up dead. 
 
 No thought of thousand widow d wives 
 
 Awoke remorseful fear; 
 No sobs of wailing orphans filled 
 
 His apathetic ear. 
 
 Twas but the common fate of war, 
 Whose tempest-shock of wrath 
 
 Napoleon was educated at the military school of Brienne. 
 200 
 
THE BELLS OF BRIENNE. 2OI 
 
 Foredoomed that human wreck and waste 
 Must strew the conqueror s path. 
 
 If million lives alone sufficed 
 
 To rear the pile so high 
 That he might climb to boundless power, 
 
 Then let the million die. 
 
 A-sudden, broke a peal of bells, 
 
 Startling the feverish air, 
 That clanged across the bloody field 
 
 The vesper-call to prayer. 
 
 The victor in his saddle drooped 
 
 With quick, spasmodic start, 
 As if a whizzing random shot 
 
 Had smote him at the heart. 
 
 Those bells ! . . . What long-forgotten hours, 
 
 What careless school-boy times, 
 What rush of innocent happiness, 
 
 All mocked him in their chimes ! 
 
 And who dare say, as contrast sharp 
 
 Pierced with its stab of pain, 
 He had not given crown, empire, all, 
 
 To be a boy again ! 
 
202 THE BELLS OF BRIENNE. 
 
 For when he turned erect once more, 
 
 To praise the cannoniers 
 Who won the fight that day, they saw 
 
 His cheek was wet with tears. 
 
PROEM. 
 
 TO "SlLVERWOOD A BOOK OF MEMORIES. 
 
 TURNING tearfully the pages 
 Of the By-gone s blotted lore, 
 
 Palimpsests o erwrit with records 
 Of the luminous heretofore; 
 
 Records where a gleam of brightness, 
 Through the fresher sorrow shines; 
 
 Records with a throb of heart-break 
 Troubling all the wavering lines ; 
 
 I have gathered of the beauty 
 That emblazons still the book, 
 
 Here, some grace s half-blurr d outline, 
 There, some hint of tone or look : 
 
 Transcripts, ah, how faint, Beloved ! 
 
 Dim suggestions of that rare 
 Inner realm the world around you 
 
 Never knew was hidden there. 
 
204 PROEM. 
 
 Like the spies of old, I ve entered, 
 Searching all the richest parts, 
 
 Bringing back some grapes of Eshcol 
 From the Canaan of your hearts. 
 
 For I need the wine of solace 
 
 Which their vintage-tide supplies, 
 
 Need the omer s strengthening manna 
 Meted to me from the skies. 
 
 Sad, behind the wains full-laden, 
 Memory, like a gleaner, strives 
 
 Thus to gather up a handful 
 From the harvest of your lives. 
 
 Seeking in her tender patience, 
 
 Through the corn-land s cast-off leaves, 
 
 Golden grains of sweet refreshment 
 Shaken from the garner d sheaves. 
 
 If she has not filled her bosom 
 With the wealth of ripened ears, 
 
 Twas because her eyes were clouded, 
 And she could not see for tears ! 
 
LITTLE JEANIE S SLEEP. 
 
 . . . How tired she was growing ! It may be 
 
 God pitied so tender a sight, 
 And whispered, "You re weary, my baby, 
 
 So shut your sweet eyes, and good-night!" 
 
 And she shut them. Be sure that our Father 
 Who guards every step that they tread, 
 
 Knows better than we when to gather 
 The little tired sleepers to bed. 
 
 And lying there now, midst the rarest 
 Of jasmines and snow-drops so white, 
 
 Herself the delightsomest, fairest 
 
 That ever unsheathed in our sight, 
 
 Midst the blossoms she loved in such fashion 
 As God loves, proclaiming them "good," 
 
 In your hunger of ravenous passion, 
 
 Would you wake her to life, if you could? 
 
 18 205 
 
206 LITTLE JEANIE S SLEEP. 
 
 If out the blue glory above you, 
 
 The voice of the Highest were heard, 
 " One word, and you have her to love you 
 Again," . . . would you utter the word? 
 
 Nay, never ! The perfected seven 
 Sweet years of her sojourn below, 
 
 Were balmed with the breezes of heaven, 
 But would it have always been so? 
 
 Like the silverest sunbeam of morning 
 
 Your hearts through her promise were blest 
 
 Would you hazard the tokens of warning 
 That point to the clouds in the west? 
 
 O say it was. well, ere the splendor 
 Of her dawning had died into grey, 
 
 While the rose-dew of childhood was tender, 
 She should glide through the arches of day. 
 
 O say that her sleep is not dreary : 
 
 It only was kindest and best, 
 That her Father who saw she was weary, 
 
 Should wrap her the sooner to rest. 
 
THE UNATTAINED. 
 
 THE loftiest-soaring thoughts that ever find 
 Within our souls their transient nestling-place, 
 Elude most subtly the detaining grasp 
 Wherewith gross speech would hold them. 
 
 Oftentimes 
 
 Through the pure aether of our silent souls 
 The warble swells, scarce audible, scarce perceived, 
 Yet circling still with clearer utterance 
 Lower and nearer, till it drops straight down 
 Into our heart. And then in eager haste 
 To keep our lark a captive fast, that so 
 Some other ear may hear what we have heard, 
 We plait a cage about with nicest art, 
 We net the very goldenest of our gyves, 
 And all being done, feel after the rare singer, 
 When lo, tis gone ! Full consciously secure, 
 We tarried overlong, and the quick thought, 
 Too airy for our snare, has safe escaped ; 
 And far receding, high above and higher, 
 
 207 
 
208 THE UNATTAINED. 
 
 Tnrough the mind s radiant atmosphere, we catch 
 What evermore we fail to others sense 
 To make articulate. Some ruffled down 
 Snatched all too rudely from the silvery breast, 
 Some feather azure-tipt, caught from the wings 
 Spread out of sight, alone are left to prove 
 The presence of the singer in our souls. 
 
THE HALLOWED NAME. 
 
 i. 
 
 A THOUSAND times I ve rung it out 
 
 With laughter s lightest tone; 
 And heard it tossed from lip to lip 
 
 As jocund as my own : 
 But now with hushing tenderness 
 
 I fold and wrap it round, 
 As if I grudged that air profane 
 
 Should share the sacred sound. 
 
 ii. 
 If unawares it strikes my ear, 
 
 Beneath the blow I start; 
 And swift, concentric thrills suffuse 
 
 The quiet of my heart : 
 All other visions break before 
 
 That circle s widening sway, 
 Till on the outmost bourn of tears 
 
 My memories melt away. 
 
 in. 
 
 O love that flung it, music-fraught, 
 Upon the zestful air, 
 
 18 * 209 
 
210 THE HALLOWED NAME. 
 
 O grief that sobs it with the slow, 
 
 Awed sanctity of prayer, 
 Ye know I may not moan it forth 
 
 With less of reverent breath 
 Than trembles o er the mouth we kiss, 
 
 Made consecrate by death ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Within a far-off place of graves, 
 
 Midst other names unknown, 
 Strange eyes behold it lettered out 
 
 On love s memorial stone : 
 They syllable with questioning lips 
 
 The simple, brief-drawn line; 
 But through what gusts of voiceless tears 
 
 It had been kissed by mine. 
 
 v. 
 Yet on a tablet deeper cut, 
 
 I keep that silent word, 
 Which in the haunts of living men 
 
 Shall nevermore be heard : 
 Too pure for common uses, raised 
 
 High o er all praise or blame : 
 Yea, since they ve learned it up in heaven, 
 
 It is a hallowed name ! 
 
DANTE IN EXILE. 
 
 "What wilt thou?" asked the Prior: and the stranger looking 
 steadfastly at him only answered, "Peace." 
 
 PEACE for the exile banished from his home, 
 
 Familiar kindred, and dear native land? 
 
 Peace for the man whose birth-soil roots him out 
 
 With scoffs, and flings him like a noxious weed 
 
 To shrivel and scorch in sultry heats of scorn. 
 
 Yea, even for him ; if that his fiery soul 
 
 Can find in wholesome and indignant hate, 
 
 A nutriment whose bitter strength can still 
 
 All gentler cravings. But no "peace" for thee, 
 
 O Poet, with thy marvellous organism, 
 
 Sweet as Ravenna s rathest summer-rose, 
 
 Soft as a rivulet mid Arezzo s hills; 
 
 Yet stern and rugged as the hard-bol d fir, 
 
 Or blasting as Vesuvius, belching fire; 
 
 With thine austere and virile soul, attempered 
 
 With woman-like lovingness, and thy great heart 
 
 211 
 
312 DANTE IN EXILE. 
 
 Thy strong, heroic, melancholy heart, 
 
 In its refinement of ecstatic pain 
 
 Evermore quivering; ah, no "peace" for thee ! 
 
 No alien fields of blue could ever seem 
 
 As living as thine own Etrurian skies : 
 
 No stream could wake, how bright soe er its flash, 
 
 The grave, still joy that thy young years had known 
 
 By silvery Arno : never city show 
 
 Such queenliness of proud magnificence, 
 
 As beautiful Florence lying like a bride 
 
 In the caresses of her oliv d hills. 
 
 Yet she could thrust thee out, yet she could bear 
 
 To bind thy chivalrous spirit to the rack 
 
 Of most ingenious torture, till thy life 
 
 Of heart-break wore at last away : And thou 
 
 Couldst grandly tame thy seething nature down, 
 
 And with superb forgiveness, such as saints 
 
 Learn only in heaven, still love her with a love 
 
 Inordinate, quenchless, unappeasable, 
 
 Throughout the eating years of martyrdom ! 
 
 She could not take thine all. Though sad athirst 
 For sympathies gracious as had once refreshed 
 Thy Tuscan home, thou hadst a secret spring, 
 Healing, exhaustless, whence thy royal soul 
 Drew strength and solace midst its harshest woes : 
 
DANTE IN EXILE. * 213 
 
 And even in thy most desolate poverty 
 
 Of hope and comfort, thou, with affluent hand, 
 
 Didst pour from that divinest fount of song, 
 
 Delicious waters, that were evermore 
 
 To be her pride who scorned thee ! 
 
 But the stream, 
 
 The deep, pure, living Hippocrene that sends 
 Down the long ages, draughts that bear refreshment 
 To myriads of hot lips, could never cure 
 Thine own home-sickness, could not satisfy 
 Thy harrowing yearnings. And the boon of peace 
 Which thou hadst sought through lonely wanderings, 
 Through years of aching banishment, in vain, 
 Thy haunted heart found only in the grave. 
 
THE VISION OF THE SNOW 
 
 i. 
 SHE has gone to be with the angels;" 
 
 So they had always said 
 To the little questioner asking 
 Of his fair, young mother, dead. 
 
 II. 
 
 They never had told of the darkness 
 Of the sorrowful-silent tomb, 
 
 Nor scared the sensitive spirit 
 By linking a thought of gloom 
 
 in. 
 With the girl-like, beautiful being, 
 
 Who patiently from her breast, 
 Had laid him in baby-sweetness, 
 
 To pass to her early rest. 
 
 214 
 
THE VISION OF THE SNOW. 215 
 
 IV. 
 And when he would lisp "Where is she?" 
 
 Missing the mother-kiss, 
 They answered "Away in a country 
 
 That is lovelier far than this; 
 
 v. 
 "A land all a-shine with beauty 
 
 Too pure for our mortal sight, 
 Where the darling ones who have left us 
 Are walking in robes of white." 
 
 VI. 
 
 And with eagerest face he would listen, 
 
 His tremulous lips apart, 
 Till the thought of the Beautiful Country 
 
 Haunted his yearning heart. 
 
 VII. 
 
 One morn, as he gazed from the window, 
 
 A miracle of surprise, 
 A marvellous, mystic vision 
 
 Dazzled his wondering eyes. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Born where the winter s harshness 
 Is tempered with spring-tide glow, 
 
2i6 THE VISION OF THE SNOW. 
 
 The delicate Southern nursling 
 Never had seen the snow. 
 
 IX. 
 
 And clasping his childish fingers, 
 He turned with a flashing brow, 
 
 And cried "We have got to heaven 
 Show me my mother now ! 
 
OUT OF THE SHADOW. 
 
 I. 
 
 "LiFE is so beautiful," I said, 
 
 "In the young, misty morning s prime, 
 
 And yours is just at blossom-time ; 
 The sparkles hang about your head, 
 And all the gracious bounty shed 
 
 Lavish above your sixteen years, 
 Wears its first freshness still ; and yet, 
 
 Sweet daughter, have I seen no tears, 
 Nor caught an unawares regret 
 Deepening the softness of your eye, 
 Is it so easy, then, to die?" 
 
 ii. 
 
 (I always knew my darling s face 
 Showed saintly through its utmost grace 
 Of pure expression, but her brow 
 Had something lambent round it now.) 
 
 in. 
 11 If life is beautiful," she said, 
 
 " Where everything its beauty mars, 
 19 217 
 
2l8 OUT OF THE SHADOW. 
 
 What must it be above the stars, 
 
 Where all its greatening powers are fed 
 For evermore with angels bread? 
 
 And often, when I wake at night, 
 And watch the sky in musings fond, 
 
 Made to hide heaven, and yet so bright, 
 I think . . . what must it be beyond? 
 
 And I can scarce keep down the prayer 
 
 Of inward longing to be there." 
 
 IV. 
 
 (O sweet, child-love that did not mark 
 The infinite vague of pathless dark 
 That lay betwixt those leaping eyes 
 And the home-windows in the skies ! ) 
 
 v. 
 "Still, life is beautiful," I said: 
 
 "Even while I take the medicin d cup 
 
 God s hand hath mixed, and drink it up, 
 Even while with soul disquieted 
 Through gnawing care and doubt and dread, 
 Life still is beautiful ! . . . and Death 
 
 How can Death seem an angel when 
 He takes away my name and breath 
 
 Out of the land of living men? 
 O child, the faith is strong to save 
 That makes such compact with the grave!" 
 
OUT OF THE SHADOW. 219 
 
 VI. 
 
 (A wondrous radiance glowed upon 
 
 The mouth that closed to meet my kiss; 
 
 Surely the glory that Saint John 
 Beheld in Patmos, was like this !) 
 
 VII. 
 
 "Still Death is beautiful/ she said, 
 "A beckoning seraph in whose arms 
 
 I safer sink from all alarms, 
 Than when, a frighten d. child, I fled 
 And sobbed my fears and hid my head 
 On your warm bosom. Mother sweet, 
 
 My Lord hath broken His heart for me, 
 That mine break not; then is it meet, 
 
 That when His messenger should be 
 Sent on the errand full of balm, 
 Come and be with me where I am ! 
 I who have often longed to go, 
 Should shrink to greet His servant so?" 
 
 VIII. 
 
 (He .came; I felt she saw him stand 
 
 Before her, in the pallid dawn; 
 One eager start, one outstretcht hand . . . 
 
 And then I knew my child was gone !) 
 
THE DIFFERENCE. 
 
 i. 
 A BIRD within the alders sang 
 
 A rapturous song; 
 So tearful-sweet its quavers rang, 
 
 Now soft, jiow strong, 
 That on my ravisht ear the strain 
 
 Began to ache, 
 Till, wrung with too delicious pain, 
 
 My heart did break. 
 But when, obedient to the call 
 
 That drew me on, 
 I flew to own the mystic thrall 
 Of the subduing madrigal, 
 
 The bird was gone ! 
 And from some other alder-bough 
 
 His liquid throat 
 Pours forth the grieving ripples now, 
 
 That swell and float, 
 And break with ecstasy divine 
 Some heart as foolish-fond as mine ! 
 
 220 
 
THE DIFFERENCE. 221 
 
 II. 
 Man s love, I sighed, is such a strain 
 
 Of capturing power, 
 The nest in which the dove hath lain 
 
 One throbbing hour : 
 Woman s . . . the soul that listeneth, 
 With overborne, enchanted breath, 
 The hope that never perisheth, 
 The life that does not die with death. 
 
 19* 
 
ALONE. 
 
 A LITTLE child whose rhythms of laughter smoothed 
 All household dissonance away, whose step 
 Kept time to the light measure of her heart, 
 Whose frolic-nature claimed all kindredship 
 With jestful, jubilant things, lay piteously 
 Moaning, held in the grasp of mortal pain. 
 
 The sportive look died out within her eyes, 
 The quip upon her tongue, the mirthfulness 
 From the young voice, as the sunshiny path, 
 Where danced with her the fairy-footed hours, 
 Darkened beneath the sudden shadow that came 
 Stalking between her and life s new-risen sun. 
 
 She raised a troubled glance: "What is it, father?" 
 And he made answer; "Only a messenger 
 Whom the dear Lord hath sent to call you, Sweet, 
 Away from all things sad, to a fair land 
 Where it is always beautiful summer-time." 
 Startled, about the stooping neck she clung 
 222 
 
ALONE. 223 
 
 With passionate burst of childlike uncontrol : 
 "Go with me, father,. for I am afraid; 
 I shiver at the creeping of the dark ; 
 I tremble ! Let me hold your dear, warm hand ; 
 O father . . . not alone ! Why even here 
 About this pretty world I have not ventured 
 To walk untended " 
 
 "Little trembler, no, 
 
 You shall not go untended. Christ himself 
 Has travelled the pathway through, and made it bright ; 
 And now He leaves the seraph-songs a little, 
 To come and hold my tender baby s hand : 
 And just outside the dusk, (some call it, death) 
 He waits to bear you past the shady places, 
 Up to your mother, darling, where she leans 
 And watches for you at the gates of pearl 
 We ve talked about right often: With Him so close, 
 You will not be afraid?" 
 
 The searching eyes 
 
 Closed as if weighted by too heavy a thought; 
 And in a silence, solemn and strange to see, 
 She lay as grappling with a truth that mastered 
 Her little powers. But when again she turned 
 Upon her father her full eyes, the fear 
 Had vanisht, and the radiant look of joy 
 Came back to brighten her face, just as of old ; 
 
224 ALONE. 
 
 And from her mouth ashened to deathliness, 
 Faltered consent articulate, which to him 
 Whose ear caught at its broken meaning, seemed 
 The first, faint trial-note of that glad song 
 Which the sweet baby-voice should sing for ever. 
 
SAINT CECILIA. 
 
 i. 
 
 HAVEN T you seen her? and don t you know 
 Why I dote on the darling so? 
 Let me picture her as she stands 
 There with the music-book in her hands, 
 Looking as ravishing, rapt and bright 
 As a baby Saint Cecilia might, 
 Lisping her bird-notes, that s Belle White. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Watch as she raises her eyes to you, 
 Half-crusht violets dipt in dew, 
 Brimming with timorous, coy surprise, 
 (Doves have just such glistening eyes:) 
 But, let a dozen of years have flight, 
 Will there be then such harmless light 
 Warming these luminous eyes, Belle White? 
 
 in. 
 
 Look at the pretty, feminine grace 
 Even now, on the small, young face : 
 
 P 225 
 
226 SAINT CECILIA. 
 
 Such a consciousness as she speaks, 
 Flushing the ivory of her cheeks, 
 Such a maidenly, arch delight 
 That she carries me captive quite, 
 Snared with her daisy-chain, Belle White. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Many an ambusht smile lies hid 
 
 Under that innocent, downcast lid : 
 
 Arrows will fly, with silvery tips, 
 
 Out from the bow of those arching lips 
 
 Parting so guilelessly, as she stands 
 
 There with the music-book in her hands, 
 
 Chanting her bird-notes soft and light, 
 
 Even as Saint Cecilia might, 
 
 Dove with the folded wings, Belle White ! 
 
THE APOSTLE OF TRUTH, 
 
 WHO DENIED HIS MASTER. 
 (" E pur si tmtove") 
 
 WHY bade he not blind Error bring 
 
 Its hate to light the pyre, 
 While he stood wrapped with grand disdain, 
 
 In martyr-robes of fire ? 
 He knew no links could bind the soul 
 
 Whose venturous courage trod, 
 Unpiloted through pathless voids, 
 
 The infinite of God ! 
 
 From its far, eyried crest of power 
 
 The eagle-spirit swooped; 
 Yet at the mumbling beck of Eld, 
 
 With weak compliance stooped; 
 While Superstition wrought and strove 
 
 To rivet fast the chain, 
 Lest that too dauntless wing should mount 
 
 The dangerous heights again. 
 
 227 
 
228 THE APOSTLE OF TRUTH. 
 
 "The Holy-Office cells are grim," 
 
 Succumbing flesh could say; 
 Though spirit whispered, "There s a light 
 
 Diviner than the day." 
 "But when resistless hands oppose, 
 
 And myriad tongues deny, 
 What can I else?" "The grandest thing . . . 
 
 For Truth s sake, dare to die!" 
 
 Strange ! that the ray which filled his soul 
 
 With utmost floods of light, 
 Should even one cowering moment lose 
 
 Its radiance to his sight : 
 Strange ! that the eye whose ken could pierce 
 
 To worlds on worlds afar, 
 Should let a dastard film of fear 
 
 Hide truth s resplendent star. 
 
THE OPEN GATE. 
 
 PAST and over; Yet no frenzy 
 
 Racks my overladen brain; 
 Grief can anodyne the spirit, 
 
 Woe can numb its pain. 
 
 Did you deem the blow would crush me, 
 
 Pitying comforters, that I 
 In despairing acquiescence 
 
 Could but moan and die? 
 
 Nay, one deadening shock hath palsied 
 
 So my sentient nature o er, 
 Well I knew no after sorrow 
 
 Now could craze me more. 
 
 Yet I grasped without abatement 
 
 Its full meaning when ye said 
 Softly, lest the sound should stun me, 
 
 That the child was dead. 
 
 20 229 
 
23 THE OPEN GATE. 
 
 Keep that bitterer word, it gauges 
 Something of that other woe, 
 
 Different as the soundless ocean s 
 From the shallows flow. 
 
 O, not dead: that word has in it 
 Maddening terrors, wild alarms: 
 
 Rather, God has given the darling 
 To his father s arms ! 
 
 Months, or is it years? have vanisht 
 Since for him the boy has smiled, 
 
 And if saints can long in heaven, 
 He must want the child. 
 
 ... I have seen the gates unfolding, 
 (Heavenly hath the vision been,) 
 
 Seen the little stranger venture 
 Through the radiance in : 
 
 Watched the timid, shrinking wonder 
 
 On the baby-face so fair, 
 And the kindling smile of rapture, 
 
 When he found him there : 
 
 Watched the soul-full recognition ; 
 Saw the finger pointing back 
 
THE OPEN GATE. 231 
 
 To the arms he knew were stretching 
 Toward that shining track: 
 
 Till I wondered at my sorrow, 
 
 But the vision would not stay; 
 And it left the truth unsoftened, 
 
 He is taken away. 
 
 What is left me? Only patience, 
 
 Only heart to watch and wait, 
 Till that moment when as convoys 
 
 From the open gate, 
 
 Forth shall issue child and father, 
 Bend above me, name my name, 
 
 Sent upon a tenderer errand 
 Than they ever came: 
 
 If to nurse the thought can lighten 
 
 Even now the crush of woe, 
 Surely, surely twill be blissful 
 
 To arise and go ! 
 
THE RESTING-PLACE. 
 
 As palmers wont to hail the niched seat 
 At desert-well, where they put off the shoon 
 And robe of travel, so I, a pilgrim as they, 
 Tired with my six-days track, would turn aside 
 Out of the scorch and glare into the shade 
 Of Sunday-stillness. Resting, I would listen 
 Gladdened, to the gurgle of the hidden stream, 
 Till every fevered throb grew calm through peace. 
 So sitting, that perfectest repose should steal 
 Inward, which disillusionizes sense, 
 And leaves the spirit, unhindered of the flesh, 
 Free to forget itself in dreams of heaven. 
 
 I would inhale the bracing, zested air 
 That vivifies the soul and lifts it up 
 To saintly heights: and to my lips that crave 
 Refreshment cooler than lies ever staled 
 
 232 
 
THE RESTING-PLACE. 233 
 
 In cisterns choked by weedy worldliness, 
 I d carry in my scallop of faith, the water 
 That gushes from the Smitten Rock. 
 
 And thus 
 
 Strengthened, I would take up my staff again, 
 And with reanimate and quickened step, 
 Sing Benedicite, and go my way. 
 
 20* 
 
THE RAIN-DROP S FATE. 
 
 ITS home was the breast of a luminous rack 
 
 Whose fringes of purple and dun 
 Were frayed by a gust on its turbulent track, 
 
 And tangled by shafts from the sun. 
 
 Slow drifted the cloud in the wane of the light, 
 
 Till it hung o er a garden so fair, 
 That the rain-drop grew envious-sad at the sight, 
 
 And peevishly sighed to be there. 
 
 A lover-like breeze that came out of the south, 
 
 Snatched up from its fretful repose 
 The murmurer, and laid it, first kissing its mouth, - 
 
 In the innermost heart of a rose. 
 
 The chamber with crimson-wrought tapestry hung, 
 The floor sanded over with gold, 
 
 234 
 
THE RAIN-DROP S FATE. 235 
 
 The fragrance spilt out of the censers that swung 
 Around, were a joy to behold. 
 
 The saffron-dyed rift in the distance afar, 
 
 Seemed only a blot on the night, 
 And the jubilant rain-drop looked out on a star 
 
 In a trance of exulting delight. 
 
 Twas the bliss of a moment: A tender-browed girl 
 Slow threading through pathway and bower, 
 
 Bade the eye she drew after her, look at the pearl 
 That swam in the heart of the flower. 
 
 ; Not the Queen of the East had so perfect a draught, 
 
 Nor a chalice so jewel d to sip," 
 He said, as he gave her the rose-cup : she quaffed, 
 
 And the pearl was dissolved on her lip. 
 
ROSALIE. 
 
 i. 
 THE bickering fire-light dances 
 
 About the fragrant room, 
 And the windows crimson drapery 
 
 Shuts out the twilight-gloom : 
 And the swell and fall of music 
 
 Make preludes to the mirth 
 Of storied voice and happy heart 
 Around the blazing hearth : 
 
 But Rosalie 
 
 Heeds not the ballad, nor the burst 
 Of childish glee. 
 
 ii. 
 
 The wintry wind is shrieking 
 Like some wild thing in wrath, 
 
 And snaps the hoary .beechen-boughs, 
 And stamps them in its path. 
 
 236 
 
ROSALIE. 2 37 
 
 And as with stridulous bellow 
 
 The surge of sleety rain 
 Comes booming with tornado-strength 
 Against the window-pane, 
 Sad Rosalie 
 
 Shades off the light, and sends her thoughts 
 Far out to sea. 
 
 III. 
 
 And while her troubled forehead 
 
 Against the pane is prest, 
 A dizzy rush of eddying fears 
 
 Goes swirling through her breast. 
 She sees a struggling vessel 
 
 Poised on a mountain wave ; 
 She looks again. . . . Tis fathoms plunged 
 
 Within a billowy grave ! 
 With wandering aim her fingers 
 
 Close, with a pallid start, 
 Upon a hidden tress that feels 
 
 The quickening of her heart : 
 
 For Rosalie 
 
 Shivers to think what sunny heads 
 Go down at sea. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Amidst the merry pauses, 
 The blast is louder heard ; 
 
238 ROSALIE. 
 
 And a child whose sudden sympathy 
 
 By danger s sense is stirred, 
 Whispers with blue eyes glazing, 
 
 And roses blanched to white, 
 "O Sister! think how many ships 
 
 The storm will wreck to-night /" 
 The anguish only needed 
 That touch of pity more 
 To crown its torture: the light form 
 Slides fainting to the floor. 
 
 Ah, Rosalie! 
 
 That night the twin-locks floated deep 
 Beneath the sea! 
 
THE AMULET. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE braided circlet clasps her arm, 
 
 And midst the jewels rare, 
 The light is trembling with the charm 
 
 That holds it captive there. 
 
 Tranced with the flashing ruby-gleams, 
 
 Cloud-pillowed it will lie, 
 And utter forth in tell-tale dreams 
 
 Its secret to the sky. 
 
 ii. 
 But purer links than these, inwove 
 
 With yet a subtler art, 
 Set with that burning, brilliant, love, 
 
 Are wound about her heart. 
 
 Thought lingers, kindling at the glance, 
 And though it owns no thrall, 
 
 There gathers o er her eye s expanse 
 A haze that tells him all. 
 
 239 
 
THE IDLE LYRE. 
 
 THERE was an idle lyre 
 
 Amid Heaven s choral band; 
 A messenger was summoned 
 
 To hear his Lord s command, 
 That from earth s lowly children 
 
 Some favored one he bring, 
 Who had a skillful finger 
 
 To sweep the golden string. 
 
 O high O, wondrous honour ! 
 
 Whose shall the glory be 
 To break that lyre s strange silence 
 
 With heaven-born harmony? 
 What mighty laurel d minstrel, 
 
 First of the fame-wreath d throng, 
 Shall angels reckon worthy 
 
 To swell those waves of song? 
 
 Some calm and saintly spirit? 
 Some affluent soul whose praise 
 
 240 
 
THE IDLE LYRE. 241 
 
 Hath caught the sacred key-note 
 
 That seraph voices raise? 
 Some pure unearthly nature, 
 
 Some listening heart that hears, 
 In golden-centred silence, 
 
 The music of the spheres? 
 
 A little child was playing 
 
 Beside his mother s knee, 
 Clad in the simple meekness 
 
 Of infant purity : 
 The angel smiling, beckoned, 
 
 And breathed the soft behest : 
 The lowliest one could waken 
 
 That silent lyre the best. 
 
 21 Q 
 
POWERS PROSERPINE. 
 
 THAT half-averted face, It takes my breath ! 
 The smile that drifts around the dimpled mouth, 
 Tears eddying in it; the low, broadened brow, 
 Calm through its passionless divinity, 
 The cheek whose velvet softness seems to dint, 
 As a thought touches it; the floss of hair, 
 A Juno-circlet round the imperial head ; 
 The chastened charm of maiden modesty 
 Pleading in every curve, and welling up 
 In tided heavings of the cloven breasts : 
 What marvel that the cluster d loveliness 
 Should tempt a kingly spirit from his throne ! 
 
 Ascend, successful Master, farther still 
 The path that upward leads : Take thou the torch 
 Than Ceres brighter, which thy genius lights 
 At its own Etna-fire, to guide thee on, 
 And in thy beauty-quest, search o er the world. 
 Outstrip the Grecian in his marvellous craft; 
 242 
 
POWERS PROSERPINE. 243 
 
 Shake in the grasp of Angelo the palm ; 
 
 Receive the chisel from Canova s hand, 
 
 And catch Thorwaldsen s mantle as it falls; 
 
 Then humbled turn away from earth s poor Art, 
 
 Confessing that its grandest skill is only 
 
 The dust of the balance weighed against His power 
 
 Who fashioned with a word a perfect man, 
 
 And breathed into the clay a living soul ! 
 
LIFE-CLOSE. 
 
 i. 
 
 THE calm, full day, so flusht with light, 
 So arched with azur d majesty, 
 Has sunk beneath the mystic sea 
 
 That shuts the immortal from our sight. 
 
 ii. 
 
 And as we watched its westering rays 
 Go down behind the purple rim, 
 We dared not let a tear-drop dim 
 
 That rich horizon s lustrous blaze. 
 
 in. 
 
 What kingly promise spanned its morn;- 
 What noble ends its noon-time hours ! 
 How grandly its unresting powers 
 
 Have all the heat and burden borne ! 
 244 
 
LIFE-CLOSE. 2 45 
 
 IV. 
 
 Tis well the longed-for night should come 
 With curtain-drop of kind release ; 
 So, in our souls we whispered "Peace," 
 
 As the last shadows settled home. 
 
 v. 
 But while we miss the shining bars 
 
 That compassed round this day so bright, 
 We look aloft, and lo, the night 
 Darkening above us, throbs with stars ! 
 21* 
 
THE BY-GONE. 
 
 (A SOUTHERN CHRISTMAS CAROL.) 
 
 i. 
 THE dear Twenty-Fifth of December, 
 
 The festival fullest of joy, 
 Most precious for age to remember, 
 
 Most merry for maiden and boy, 
 Comes again with its promise to gladden, 
 
 Comes again with its prodigal cheer, 
 To banish whatever may sadden 
 
 The lingering days of the year. 
 
 ii . 
 We know that this beautiful season 
 
 Is flung like a garland of mirth 
 (We thank the dear Lord for the reason !) 
 
 All over the face of the earth : 
 246 
 
THE BT-GONE. 247 
 
 The homeliest cottage seems brighter, 
 
 The wintriest spirit less sad ; 
 The greyest of landscapes grows lighter, 
 
 And the world s wrinkled forehead is glad. 
 
 in. 
 Tis the time of all times to remember 
 
 The past, and be happy: and yet 
 The shadow that glooms our December 
 
 Is, to feel that we cannot forget ! 
 We heap the red fagots together, 
 
 We wrap us with carefulest art ; 
 But the cold s not the cold of the weather, 
 
 The rime is the rime of the heart. 
 
 IV. 
 
 All the length of our desolate border 
 
 The hopeless make moan, and alas, 
 In the conflict of order with order, 
 
 The peoples are withered like grass. 
 No light-hearted, loud jubilation 
 
 Makes the holiday hearty with glee : 
 A hush broods abroad the plantation, 
 
 Like the storm s dying sob on the sea ! 
 
 v. 
 
 There once was a time, let us cherish 
 Its memory deep in the core 
 
248 THE BY-GONE. 
 
 Of emotions we dare not let perish, 
 A time we can look for no more ! 
 
 Let us tell to our children the story, 
 With earnest and tremulous mouth, 
 
 Of the sweetness, the grace and the glory 
 That hallowed the Homes of the South. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Let us picture the Christmas-tide blisses, 
 
 The holly-crown d hall, the brave cheer, 
 The warm, courtly welcome, the kisses 
 
 Of the kindred unmet for a year : 
 The throngs of old servants who gather 
 
 To witness the dance and" the glee; 
 This dandled our mother, our father 
 
 That patriarch nursed on his knee. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The eyes of our children will glisten 
 Half tearful, half doubtful, perchance; 
 
 And they ll think that it sounds, as they listen, 
 Like the page of a feudal romance. 
 
 And thus, from our loving lips learning 
 The By-gone so tenderly o er, 
 
 They will sigh with regretfulest yearning 
 
 For the beautiful Christmas of yore. 
 1865. 
 
IN PACE. 
 
 i. 
 
 MOTHER, drooping wan and weary 
 In the midnight silence dreary, 
 Conning o er the childish prattle 
 Of the boy who fell in battle, 
 Till your memories sting you, sighing, 
 "Who will tell me where he s lying?" 
 
 Dry your tears now : kindly faces 
 Bend above the hallowed places, 
 Seek the nameless dead, and bear them 
 Home to tombs their hands prepare them; 
 Friend, compatriot, comrade, brother, 
 And your boy s among them, mother. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Widowed wife, whose heart is breaking 
 Slowly, surely with its aching, 
 
 249 
 
250 IN PACE. 
 
 Moaning on your tear-stained pillow, 
 "Were his grave beneath the willow 
 In the church-yard, kneeling by it, 
 I could sob myself to quiet:" 
 
 Henceforth calm your heartache : tender 
 Patriot love doth solace render; 
 Plants the cypress, rears the column, 
 And with saintly rites and solemn 
 Lays your darling there : Pale weeper, 
 Go and pray beside your sleeper. 
 
 in. 
 
 Maiden, with white lids dropt slowly 
 Over eyes downcast and holy, 
 Hiding grief that none discover 
 For the far-off-buried lover, 
 Wailing of that spot so lonely, 
 "O, to kiss and clasp it only!" 
 
 Be your voiceless sorrow softened ; 
 Think of him no more uncoffined : 
 Not a tended turf is greener, 
 Not a cedarn copse serener, 
 Not a mossier mound than this is; 
 Maiden, warm it with your kisses ! 
 
SONNETS. 
 
EQUIPOISE. 
 
 JUST when we think we ve fixed the golden mean, 
 The diamond point, on which to balance fair 
 Life and life s lofty issues, weighing there, 
 
 With fractional precision, close and keen, 
 
 Thought, motive, word and deed, there comes between 
 Some wayward circumstance, some jostling care, 
 Some temper s fret, some mood s unwise despair, 
 
 To mar the equilibrium, unforeseen, 
 
 And spoil our nice adjustment ! Happy he, 
 
 Whose soul s calm equipoise can know no jar, 
 
 Because the unwavering hand that holds the scales, 
 
 Is the same hand that weighed each steadfast star, 
 Is the same hand that on the sacred tree 
 
 Bore, for his sake, the anguish of the nails ! 
 
 22 253 
 
SATURDAY NIGHT. 
 
 THE spirit s trailing garments that have swept 
 Through all the week along the dusty way, 
 Catching assoilment from the griming day, 
 (Though oft aside the foot in voidance stept, ) 
 Gather them up to-night: they have not kept 
 Immaculate their whiteness from the clay; 
 The delicate weftage, fretting troubles fray; 
 The broider d hem, oft caught by cares that crept 
 Brier-like, along the path, is rent apart, 
 Ravelled and distained. Wherefore, disheartened one, 
 Loosen these work-day vestments from thee, lest, 
 Uncleansed by meditation s holy art, 
 
 Thy soul be found unfitted to put on 
 The pure, fair linen of the Sabbath rest. 
 
 254 
 
CONVIVA SATUR. 
 
 IF he could say it, turning from the board 
 His creedless life had spread him, nor repine 
 That in his dear Digentia, other wine 
 
 Than his, should gather coolness, or the hoard 
 
 Of Sabine olives be for others stored, 
 
 Then surely, I ! The love this heart of mine 
 Knew of all draughts to be the most divine, 
 
 Into life s crystal goblet hath been poured 
 Till it runs over: faith, the living bread, 
 Hallows the table, while on every side, 
 
 With heaping clusters have my hopes been fed, 
 Nor tempered appetite been once denied : 
 
 And I am ready, when the thanks are said, 
 
 To rise and leave the banquet, satisfied. 
 
 255 
 
THE MORROW. 
 
 OF all the tender guards which Jesus drew 
 About our frail humanity, to stay 
 The pressure and the jostle that alway 
 
 Are ready to disturb, whate er we do, 
 
 And mar the work our hands would carry through, 
 None, more than this, environs us each day 
 
 With kindly wardenship : " Therefore, I say, 
 Take no thought for the morrow." Yet we pay 
 The wisdom scanty heed, and impotent 
 To bear the burden of the imperious Now, 
 
 Assume the future s exigence unsent. 
 
 God grants no overplus of power : Tis shed 
 
 Like morning manna: Yet we dare to bow 
 
 And ask, "Give us to-day our morrow s bread!" 
 256 
 
DOUBT. 
 
 I LIFT weak hands in lowliest thankfulness, 
 That, as a little stumbling child who knows 
 Naught of the way he treads, but onward goes, 
 
 Happy, secure, unquestioning, reasonless, 
 
 Because he feels his father s fingers press 
 
 His own in steadfast guidance, doubts impose 
 
 No cross-lights to confuse me or distress. 
 " Is this the way?" If Christ but answer, "Yes," 
 
 I am content. I would not have the trust 
 Of yearling prattlers shame me, while I stand 
 Demanding how the bridgeless gulf is crossed, 
 
 The scaleless mountain levelled with the dust, 
 
 The mist-swathe rent in which the path seems lost; 
 What need to ask? My Father holds my hand. 
 22 * ft 257 
 
OURS. 
 
 MOST perfect attribute of love, that knows 
 
 No separate self, no conscious mine nor thine ; 
 
 But mystic union, closer, more divine 
 Than wedded soul and body can disclose. 
 No flush of pleasure on thy forehead glows, 
 No mist of feeling in thine eyes can shine 
 
 No faintest pain surprise thee, but there goes 
 The lightning-spark along love s viewless line, 
 
 Bearing with instant message to my heart, 
 Responsive recognition. Suns or showers 
 
 May come between us; silences may part; 
 The rushing world know not, nor care to know; 
 Yet back and forth the flashing secrets go, 
 
 Whose sacred, only sesame is, ours ! 
 
 258 
 
THE HYSSOP. 
 
 BEAR me no lordly palm-branch, such as waves 
 
 Triumphantly in conquering hands, nor choose 
 
 The crown of bay, pearled with Olympian dews, 
 Nor fadeless laurel, such as poet craves : 
 Twine me no myrtle which the lover laves 
 
 With passion s tears ; wreathe not the mournful yew s 
 
 Funereal bough, nor marvel I refuse 
 The willow drooping low o er hallow d graves, 
 
 Nor bind me yet the peaceful olive s leaves. 
 But grant me dearer, holier far than all 
 
 Emblems of earthly good or earthly loss, 
 That sign of heavenliest boon the soul receives, 
 
 The lowly-springing hyssop of the wall, 
 Wet with the blood that flows from Calvary s cross ! 
 
 259 
 
NATURE S LESSON. 
 
 PAIN is no longer pain when it is past; 
 
 And what is all the mirth of yesterday, 
 
 More than the yester flush that paled away, 
 Leaving no trace across the landscape cast 
 
 Whereby to prove its presence there? The blast 
 That bowed the knotted oak beneath its sway, 
 And rent the lissome ash, the forest may 
 
 Take heed of longer, since strewn leaves outlast 
 Strewn sunbeams even. Be thou like Nature then, 
 
 Calmly receptive of all sweet delights, 
 The while they soothe and strengthen thee : and when 
 
 The wrench of trial comes with swirl and strain, 
 Think of the still progressive days and nights, 
 
 That blot with equal sweep, both joy and pain. 
 
 260 
 
THE STIRRED NEST. 
 
 Too much on earth, too much on what must sway 
 
 With every oversweeping gust of time, 
 
 I ve set my hopes, where no rude care might climb, 
 Fond thought ! to spoil my nest or steal away 
 The cherished singers that for many a day 
 
 Had cheered me with their song. But the rough wind 
 Again and yet again has wrenched the bough. 
 
 And driven my clinging fledglings far and wide, 
 To wail the refuge which they fail to find, 
 
 And fill my ear with plaintive moaning now. 
 Where shall the scattered, homeless wanderers hide 
 
 And build once more? Not here, where storms are 
 
 rife, 
 Not here, my heart ! but where no ills betide, 
 
 In the safe shelter of the Tree of Life ! 
 
 261 
 
THE REASON. 
 
 WHEN. Death, that irremediable ill, 
 
 Soothed only by submission s bitter balm, 
 Wrests from our souls remorselessly, their calm, 
 
 Sweet, natural joys, we deem no peace can fill, 
 Nor zest can stimulate, nor hope have skill 
 
 To solace them more. We say, the soothing psalm 
 
 Will henceforth ever seem a dirge: "I am 
 The Resurrection and the Life," be still 
 Muffled by falling clods, whereon our tears 
 
 So idly rain. When bowed the ancient sage 
 Above his dead, surprised with anguish deep, 
 
 "It cannot help thee," urged the friends whose fears 
 Stirred for the grief they could not else assuage ; 
 
 "Because it cannot help," he said, "I weep." 
 262 
 
UNDERTOW. 
 
 IT is a boon for which to render praise 
 
 Beyond our wont, that Heaven the power imparts 
 To hide away our festering griefs and smarts, 
 
 And shut us safe from all intrusive gaze. 
 
 For oft-times when the impassive brow is still, 
 And the hoarse murmurs of the world sink low, 
 
 The inward ear is deafened by the flow 
 
 Of whirling maelstroms whose strong eddies fill 
 The soul with tempest-wrack: And then to wear 
 
 To eyes wherein no soft responses dwell, 
 A face of tidal quiet that shall bear 
 No ripple of undercurrents, is surely well. 
 
 Who would that even the lovingest heart should know 
 
 The secret springs of many an hour of woe? 
 
 263 
 
IF. 
 
 hie tandem felicis 
 
 AND did the dumb and ghastly solitude, 
 The pale, perpetual quiet of the grave, 
 Wherein retributive passions cease to rave, 
 
 Hush that tumultuous spirit s rankling mood, 
 
 Till all its stormy riot was subdued, 
 
 And the salt wretchedness it sought to brave, 
 Ebbed into silence, a spent, wintry wave? 
 
 Yea, if so be the calm did but include 
 
 Final redemption from the woeful strife 
 
 In which he vanquisht sank; if mercy s kiss 
 Of reconcilement sealed his lips before 
 
 The bitter culmination of his life, 
 
 Then found he, through that open grave, a door 
 
 That at the last, hath let him into bliss. 
 264 
 
GOD S PATIENCE. 
 
 OF all the attributes whose starry rays 
 Converge and centre in one focal light 
 Of luminous glory such as angels sight 
 Can only look on with a blench d amaze, 
 
 None crowns the brow of God with purer blaze, 
 Nor lifts His grandeur to more infinite height, 
 Than His exhaustless patience. Let us praise 
 With wondering hearts, this strangest, tenderest grace, 
 
 Remembering awe-struck, that the avenging rod 
 Of justice must have fallen, and mercy s plan 
 Been frustrate, had not Patience stood between, 
 Divinely meek : And let us learn that man, 
 Toiling, enduring, pleading, calm, serene, 
 For those who scorn and slight, is likest God. 
 
THE SHADOW. 
 
 IT comes betwixt me and the amethyst 
 
 Of yon far mountain s billowy range ; the sky, 
 Mild with stmsetting calmness, to my eye 
 
 Is curtained ever by its haunting mist : 
 And oftentimes when some dear brow I ve kissed, 
 My lips grow tremulous as it sweeps me by, 
 With stress of overmastering agony 
 
 That faith and reason all in vain resist. 
 It blurs my fairest books ; it dims the page 
 
 Of the divinest lore ; and on my tongue 
 The broken prayer that inward strength would crave, 
 
 Dissolves in sobs no soothing can assuage: 
 And this penumbral gloom, this heart-cloud flung 
 Around me is, the memory of a grave. 
 266 
 
FAILURE. 
 
 NEVER on any of God s creatures shone 
 A cheerier sunshine than on us to-day ! 
 Nature s most priceless gifts, her rich array, 
 
 Soft air, pure sky, green earth and mountain zone, 
 
 Are in fee-simple, each and all our own, 
 As freely as yonder oriole s on the spray 
 Of out-bloom d lilac there, who trills away 
 
 His heart in rapture, though his spring be flown. 
 
 Our quick blood tingles zestfully; the fair, 
 Persistent augury of hope is heard ; 
 
 The burden d spirit uplifts with lithe rebound; 
 All life without, within defies despair ; 
 
 Yet tl Failure, Failure" still is sighed around: 
 
 Go to ! we will not listen to the word ! 
 
 267 
 
NON DOLET. 
 
 WHEN downfall and disaster sore beset 
 The Roman Arria, yielding to the tide 
 Of ills that overwhelmed on every side, 
 With unheroic heart that could forget 
 Twas cowardice to die, she dared and met 
 The easier fate, and luring, sought to hide 
 For her beloved s sake (true woman yet !) 
 The inward anguish with a wifely pride. 
 Not so our Southern Arria : In the face 
 Of deadlier woes, she dared to live, and wring 
 Hope out of havoc : till the brave control, 
 Pathetic courage and most tender grace 
 Of her " non dolet" nerved her husband s soul, 
 Won him to life, and dulled even failure s sting. 
 
 268 
 
RELIGIOUS PIECES. 
 
RABBONI. 
 
 i. 
 OF all the nights of most mysterious dread, 
 
 This elded earth hath known, none matched in 
 
 gloom 
 
 That crucifixion night when Christ lay dead, 
 Sealed up in Joseph s tomb ! 
 
 II. 
 
 No faith that rose sublime above the pain, 
 
 Remembered in its anguish what He said ; 
 : After three days, and I shall rise again," 
 Their hopeless hearts were dead. 
 
 in. 
 Throughout that ghastly "Preparation-Day," 
 
 How had the stricken mother dragged her breath ! 
 Like all of Adam born, her God-given lay 
 Beneath the doom of death. 
 
 271 
 
272 RABBONI. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The prophecy she nursed through pondering years 
 
 Of apprehension, now had found its whole 
 Fulfillment, infinite beyond her fears, 
 
 The sword had pierced her soul ! 
 
 v. 
 
 The vehement tears of Peter well might flow, 
 
 Mixed with the wormwood of repentant shame ; 
 Now would he yield his life thrice told, if so 
 He might confess the name 
 
 VI. 
 
 He had denied with curses. Fruitless were 
 
 The keen remorses now, the gnawing smart; 
 A heavier stone than sealed the sepulchre 
 Was rolled above his heart. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Surprise and grief and baffled hopes sufficed 
 
 To rush as seas their souls and God between ; 
 Yet none of all had mourned the buried Christ, 
 As Mary Magdalene. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 When all condemned, He bade her live again, 
 When all were hard, His pity poured above 
 
R ABB ON I. 273 
 
 Her penitent spirit, healed it, cleansed its stain, 
 And made it pure with love. 
 
 IX. 
 
 And she had broken all her costliest store 
 
 O er Him whose tenderness, so new, so rare, 
 Stood like a strong, white angel evermore 
 Twixt her and mad despair. 
 
 x. 
 
 And He was dead ! Her peace had died with Him ! 
 
 The daemons who had fled at His control, 
 With seven-fold chains within their dungeons dim, 
 Would henceforth bind her soul. 
 
 XI. 
 
 How slowly crept the Sabbath s endless week ! 
 What aching vigils watched the lingering day, 
 When she might stagger through the dark and seek 
 The garden where He lay ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 And when she thrid her way to meet the dawn, 
 
 And found the gates unbarred, a grieving moan 
 Brake from her lips "Who," for her strength was 
 gone, 
 
 "Will roll away the stone?" 
 
274 RABBONL 
 
 XIII. 
 
 She held no other thought, no hope but this ; 
 
 To look, to touch the sacred flesh once more, 
 Handle the spices with adoring kiss, 
 
 And help to wind Him o er 
 
 XIV. 
 
 With the fair linen Joseph had prepared, 
 
 Lift reverently the wounded hands and feet, 
 And gaze, awe-blinded, on the features bared, 
 And drink the last, most sweet, 
 
 xv. 
 Divine illusion of His presence there ; 
 
 And then, the embalming done, with one low cry 
 Of utmost, unappeasable despair, 
 
 Seek out her home, and die. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Lo ! the black square that showed the opened tomb ! 
 
 She sprang, she entered unafraid, and swept 
 Her arms outstretching, groping through the gloom, 
 To touch Him where He slept. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Her trembling fingers grasped the raiment cold, 
 Pungent with aloes, lying where He lay : 
 
RABBONI. 275 
 
 She smoothed her hands above it, fold by fold, 
 Her Lord was stolen away ! 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 And others came anon, who wept Him sore, 
 
 Simon and John, the women pale and spent 
 With fearful watchings ; wondering more and more, 
 They questioned, gazed, and went. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Not thus did Mary. Though the lingering gloom 
 
 Pearled into brightness, and the city s stir 
 Came floating upward to the garden tomb, 
 There was no dawn for her : 
 
 xx. 
 
 No room for faintest hopes, nor utmost fears; 
 
 For when she sobbing stooped and saw the twain 
 White-clothen angels, through her falling tears, 
 Sit where her Lord had lain, 
 
 XXI. 
 
 And ask,: "Why weepest thou ? there brake no cry, 
 
 But she with deaden d calm her answer made : 
 "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I 
 Know not where He is laid." 
 
276 RABBONI. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Was it a step upon the dewy grass? 
 
 Was it a garment rustled by the wind ? 
 Did some husht breathing o er her senses pass, 
 And draw her looks behind? 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 She turned and saw the very Lord she sought, 
 
 Jesus, the newly-risen ! . . . but no surprise 
 Held her astound and rooted to the spot; 
 Her film d and holden eyes 
 
 xxiv. 
 
 Had only vision for the swathed form ; 
 
 Nor from her mantle lifted she her face, 
 Nor marvelled that the gardener s voice should warm 
 With pity at her case ; 
 
 xxv. 
 
 Till sprang the sudden thought, " If he should know : 
 
 And then she turned full quickly: "Sir, I pray, 
 
 Tell me where thou hast borne Him, that I may go 
 
 And take Him thence away." 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 The resurrection-morning s broadening blaze 
 Shot up behind, and clear before her sight, 
 
RABBONI. 277 
 
 Centered on Jesus its transfiguring rays, 
 And haloed Him with light. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 Maryf The measureless pathos was the same 
 
 As when her Lord had said " Thou art forgiven :" 
 Had He, for comfort, named her by her name 
 Out from the height of heaven ? 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 She looked aloft, she listened, turned and gazed ; 
 
 A revelation flashed across her brow; 
 One moment, and she prostrate fell, amazed, 
 Rabboni , // is Thou / 
 
 24 
 
THE CHILD JESUS. 
 
 i. 
 
 ALL placid and lonely the village 
 
 Of Nazareth slept on the plain ; 
 No husbandman toiled at the tillage, 
 
 Nor reaped the ripe ears of the grain : 
 No vine-dressers wrought at their labors, 
 
 Nor passed with their priming-hooks by : 
 The slopes were as silent as Tabor s, 
 
 And Tabor was still as the sky. 
 
 ii. 
 No voices of innocent riot 
 
 In market-place, hostel or hut : 
 The hum of the craftsman was quiet, 
 
 The door of the synagogue shut. 
 No Alephs and Beths were heard swelling 
 
 From the school of the scribe, by the wall 
 And Joseph-the-carpenter s dwelling 
 
 Was hushed as the publican s stall. 
 278 
 
THE CHILD JESUS. 279 
 
 III. 
 Twas the week of the Passover : only 
 
 The aged, the sickly, the blind, 
 The tottering children and lonely 
 
 Young mothers, had tarried behind. 
 To the sacredest Feast of the nation, 
 
 Through the paths that their fathers had trod, 
 All others with paschal oblation 
 
 Had gone to the City of God. 
 
 And Mary, to every beholder, 
 
 Her face toucht with wistfulest dole, 
 (Remembering what Simeon had told her 
 
 Of the sword that should pierce through her soul, ) 
 With faith yet too steadfast to falter, 
 
 Though sorely with mysteries tried, 
 Midst the worshippers stood at the altar, 
 
 With Jesus the child by her side. 
 
 v. 
 The seven days festival ended, 
 
 Rites finished for people and priest, 
 The throngs from the Temple descended, 
 
 And homeward set face from the Feast. 
 And neighbor held converse with neighbor, 
 
 Unwonted and simple and free, 
 
280 THE CHILD JESUS. 
 
 As northward they journeyed toward Tabor, 
 Or westward they turned to the sea. 
 
 VI. 
 
 But not till the night-dews were falling, 
 
 Did Mary, oft questioning, find, 
 As children to children were calling, 
 
 That Jesus had lingered behind. 
 He vex her? the mother that bore Him? 
 
 Or veiled it some portent or sign? 
 For oft had she trembled before Him, 
 
 Her human too near His divine. 
 
 VII. 
 
 She sought midst her kinsfolk, whose pity 
 
 Grew tender to look on her grief: 
 Then back through the streets of the city 
 
 She hastened, yet found not relief. 
 Thus searching, a marvellous story 
 
 Her ear and her senses beguiled; 
 "The Rabbis, grey-bearded and hoary, 
 
 In the Temple are taught by a child." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 O, marvel of womanly weakness ! 
 
 She finds Him : fears, sorrows subside, 
 And Mary, the angel of meekness, 
 
 In petulance pauses to chide : 
 
THE CHILD JESUS. 281 
 
 "Son, wherefore thus tarry to gather 
 
 About Thee the curious throng, 
 Unheeding the while, that Thy father 
 
 And I have been seeking Thee long?" 
 
 IX. 
 
 A look so reproachfully tender, 
 
 It awed while it melted her eye, 
 He cast, as He hastened to render 
 
 Subjection and filial reply : 
 "Nay, wherefore perplexed and pursuing? 
 
 Dost thou too, my mother, forget, 
 And wist not the Son must be doing 
 
 The work that His Father hath set?" 
 
 24* 
 
SUPPER AT BETHANY. 
 
 AND now the even-tide had come, and Jesus blessed 
 
 feet 
 Ached with the long day s ceaseless toil within the 
 
 scorching street. 
 
 The Temple s topmost pinnacle held fast a sunbeam 
 
 yet, 
 While grey the shadows hung around the groves of 
 
 Olivet. 
 
 "Master, the hour wears late; behold, the sun hath 
 
 left the west, 
 
 The thronging crowds have prest Thee sore, and Thou 
 hast need of rest. 
 
 The Twelve return from court and lane, and all their 
 
 teachings cease ; 
 
 Beseech Thee, leave these noisy ways, and go apart 
 for peace." 
 
 2S2 
 
SUPPER AT B ETHAN T. 283 
 
 With urgency thus Peter spake as the hot streets grew 
 
 dim; 
 And Jesus knew each word was said through anxious 
 
 care for Him. 
 
 So out beyond the gates they went, the Master 
 
 walked before, 
 And stars shone through the olives ere they paused 
 
 at Martha s door. 
 
 Instant her earnest zeal was fired ; with tumult of 
 
 accord 
 Her toucht heart sprang with haste to yield due honor 
 
 to her Lord. 
 
 And through the quiet-order d house is strange, un 
 wonted stir; 
 
 The Master, spent and travail-worn, hath deigned 
 to come to her. 
 
 So tired He seems, that to and fro she flies with 
 
 quick command ; 
 And as she speeds the hurrying meal, she misses 
 
 Mary s hand. 
 
 : What ! following Him with questionings still, there, 
 
 sitting at His feet, 
 When tasked with teachings, He is faint for lack of 
 
 food to eat? 
 
284 SUPPER AT BETH ANT. 
 
 "Lord, for Thy needful earthly meat hast Thou so 
 
 little care? 
 
 Nay, bid my sister come and help, that we for Thee 
 prepare. 
 
 Amid His parables He paused to hearken while she 
 
 spake, 
 And Mary s startled, down-dropt face a lowlier look 
 
 did take. 
 
 And Jesus said, while tender love ran infinite through 
 
 each word, 
 (He knew that fretted heart for Him with fervid zeal 
 
 was stirred : ) 
 
 "Ah, Martha, Martha, many things thy daily comfort 
 
 vex, 
 
 And troubles manifold distract, and cumbering cares 
 perplex : 
 
 "But one thing only needful is, and verily I say, 
 Mary hath chosen that better part which none shall 
 take away." 
 
EVEN SO, FATHER. 
 
 WHEN from the central throne on which the eyes 
 Of seraphim could only avail to look 
 With half-uplifted lids and clouding wings 
 Raised shieldingly betwixt them and God s face, 
 The Christ descended, wonder throbbed through 
 
 heaven. 
 
 Unblenched their strong, far-piercing sight could bear 
 The near, full gaze upon the countless suns 
 That met them in their circling sweep through space, 
 But from His glory, they shrank dazzled, blind. 
 Then how should man, poor atom of a. day, 
 Endure the perilous brightness, and yet live? 
 
 Not even angelic nature might conceive 
 
 Such abnegation, such a putting off 
 
 Of Godhead splendors, such an humbling down 
 
 Of pure Divinity s sovereign attributes, 
 
 That the clay vessel of humanity 
 
 Could hold concentrate in its finite sphere 
 
 285 
 
286 EVEN SO, FATHER. 
 
 Omniscience that out-flashed the bournless verge 
 Of God s grand universe. And when they looked 
 To see Him burst with undisputed sway 
 Upon that little, distant speck in space 
 Where the rebellious dwelt, whose impotence 
 Should shrivel awe-struck before Him, who shall 
 
 recount 
 
 Their dumb bewilderment, as back the host 
 Came rapid with the tidings, They had left 
 The Son of God, a babe in swaddling-bands ! 
 
 With questioning gaze intense, they bent to read 
 The mystery s meaning. They beheld the child, 
 A human sleeper on a human breast, 
 With new-found sense of that Omnipotence 
 That thus could narrow and shut itself behind 
 A mask of flesh : and more the amazement grew 
 That she, a mortal, dared to press those hands 
 With such familiar love, when they had hung 
 Back from His touch in heaven. 
 
 Through all His years 
 Of Nazareth toil, of goings to and fro 
 Up to Jerusalem s paschal feasts, they watched, 
 Panting to pierce the yet unlifted veil. 
 And when the hour of His forth-setting came, 
 They but beheld humiliation still. 
 Not from the ranks of venerable state, 
 
EVEN SO, FATHER. 287 
 
 Not from the porches of the vaunted schools, 
 Not from the lineage of inspired souls 
 Whose prescience far outran the generation 
 That knew them not, not from the lordly race, 
 Affluent of wisdom, lofty-doing or power, 
 Saw they Him choose the fitting instruments 
 Wherewith to work His vast accomplishments. 
 But He did take Him poor, ignoble men, 
 (As calendared in earthly registry,) 
 And put into their stammering, untaught lips, 
 Words that the high-born angels dared not use. 
 
 Foul daemons that had ravined unafraid 
 Over this marred creation, thrusting forth 
 Their hissing insolence in the very front 
 Of Heaven s pure ministrants, they marvelled to see 
 Confounded shrink away, when these weak men 
 Gave utterance to their exorcising spell, 
 And spake the name of Jesus. They beheld 
 Fierce hearts that scouted God and mocked His love, 
 Break and grow soft and heave with aspirations 
 Saintly as even their own : And a fresh thought 
 Of that stupendous power that with such helps, 
 Could work such ends, begat in them new joy. 
 
 And when they heard the voice of Christ Himself 
 
 Uplifted in that lone Judean vale, 
 
 In audible thanksgiving and praise, more rapt, 
 
288 EVEN SO, FATHER. 
 
 They bent and listened still: 
 
 "I thank thee, Father, 
 
 Lord of the heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid 
 Thy wisdom from the wise and prudent, and hast 
 Revealed it unto babes like these : Even so 
 Father, since thus tis good within Thy sight." 
 
 As died the utterance on those sacred lips, 
 The listeners caught it up in glad amaze, 
 And bore it heavenward, ever murmuring, 
 As o er the Atonement s yet unfolded plan 
 They mused in mute astonishment, "Even so 
 Father, since thus it seemeth good to Thee!" 
 
THE SEARCH OF THE SAGES. 
 
 ALL night upon their lofty tower. 
 
 With upturned brow and straining eye, 
 The Persian Sages watched each hour 
 
 Of the brief, orient dusk go by : 
 Yet still that unfamiliar star, 
 Mysteriously near, yet far, 
 Prevailing with such steadfast blaze 
 Above Orion s belted rays, 
 Or mellower Pleiades, was there, 
 
 Unheralded, unnamed, unknown : 
 
 No Chaldees chart its place had shown 
 In the broad heavens; and yet how rare 
 Its radiance was ! how crystal fair ! 
 
 II. 
 
 It did not set, like other stars, 
 
 It did not melt away nor wane ; 
 25 T 289 
 
290 THE SEARCH OF THE SAGES. 
 
 But steadier than the fiery Mars, 
 
 Each night beheld it gleam again 
 In unshorn splendor. Was it sent, 
 Precursor of some strange event, 
 The gods would thus reveal to earth ? 
 Did it presage some Princely birth, 
 
 Some regnant sway that should extend 
 From south to north, from east to west, 
 O er all the Islands of the Blest, 
 
 Far as the sun his beams might send, 
 Even to the world s remotest end? 
 
 III. 
 
 Thus grew the thought: "It must be so! 
 
 The star tends westward, as we see ; 
 The sacred Hierarchs bid us go 
 
 And seek the new-born Sovereignty. 
 Nor sent on embassage so grand, 
 Dare we depart with empty hand : 
 But of our costliest, richest things 
 Tis meet we bear this King of kings, 
 
 Right royal offerings, Uphaz gold, 
 The myrrh of Saba, spices sweet, 
 To lay, for homage at His feet, 
 
 Whose empire vast and manifold, 
 
 Such mighty augury hath foretold." 
 
THE SEARCH OF THE SAGES. 291 
 IV. 
 
 So, forth upon their heaven-sent way, 
 
 The Sages journeyed long and far, 
 With eyes updrawn to watch the ray 
 
 That glittered from their pilot star. 
 And when meridian suns on high 
 Drowned its new sparkle from the sky, 
 Trustful, they paused within their tent, 
 Until the eclipsing glory went 
 Down goldenly beneath the plain ; 
 
 And then with hope half-touched with fear, 
 
 They looked aloft, and fixt and clear, 
 Each eve, amid the twilight s wane, 
 They hailed their mystic guide again. 
 
 v. 
 With thirsty eyes its beams they quaffed, 
 
 And followed at its silent call, 
 Until it dropt a crystal shaft 
 
 Right over Bethlehem s village wall. 
 They marvelled wherefore there should be 
 No stir of royal pageantry; 
 They looked to see the palace light, 
 They deemed would daze the vulgar sight ; 
 Yet strangely urged, they onward passed 
 Through careless throngs, and reached at last 
 
292 THE SEARCH OF THE SAGES. 
 
 A clay-built shed o er which their guide 
 
 Stood still. A wide-eyed, dumb amaze 
 One instant held them : but the rays 
 
 Shot straight the litter d straw beside. 
 Then, mute before the mystery 
 
 Unfathomable, in meekness they 
 Entered with offerings, worship, praise, 
 
 And owned the Sovereignty that lay 
 Swathed in our weak humanity, 
 A babe upon a woman s knee. 
 
THE YOUNG RULER S QUESTION, 
 
 HE had riches and ease and honor, 
 
 And never a Jewish boy 
 Had passed on the banks of Jordan 
 
 A tenderer youth of joy. 
 
 He had houses and fields and vineyards, 
 And blessings of all degree ; 
 
 None had a fairer portion 
 In beautiful Galilee. 
 
 Whatever this world could offer 
 
 Of pure and innocent bliss, 
 Whatever his nature needed 
 
 Of goodliest gifts, was his. 
 
 He had felt no weary longings, 
 No wants that were unsupplied ; 
 
 Upright and just and noble, 
 His spirit was satisfied. 
 
 25 * 293 
 
-94 THE TO UNO RULER S QUESTION. 
 
 Only one thought had power 
 
 Ever a cloud to cast: 
 Joy, to be wholly perfect, 
 
 Must be a joy to last : 
 
 And he knew that his own was fleeting; 
 
 For he read in the sacred Psalm, 
 That man must fade as a flower, 
 
 And it sometimes marred his calm. 
 
 He turned to the holy Prophets, 
 
 Security thence to draw ; 
 And he listened to Moses teachings, 
 
 And he strove to keep the Law. 
 
 He tithed his anise and cummin, 
 He tithed his mint and rue : 
 
 He knew he had earth s best treasures, 
 He hoped he had heaven s too. 
 
 In the mart of a busy city 
 
 It came to pass, one day, 
 That a throng of curious people 
 
 Was choking the narrow way; 
 
 All pressing with upturned faces, 
 Eager to hear and see 
 
THE YOUNG RULER S QUESTION. 295 
 
 The miracle-working Rabbi 
 Who had come to Galilee. 
 
 "Now, verily, what will it profit 
 A man, though he gain the whole 
 
 Of the world, with its utmost glory, 
 If yet he should lose his soul ? 
 
 "Come unto me, ye weary " 
 
 It dropped on the passing ear 
 Of the young and happy Ruler, 
 For he could not choose but hear. 
 
 He did not pause to listen 
 
 As he skirted the crowd, but went 
 
 Homeward athwart the city, 
 Wrapped in his sweet content. 
 
 Yet ever and oft, the Teacher 
 
 Rose to his inward eye; 
 Over and over the question 
 
 Waited his heart s reply. 
 
 Bliss that should be eternal, 
 Pleasures that could not cloy: 
 
 These were the very blessings 
 Needed to crown his joy ! 
 
296 THE TOUNG RULER S QUESTION. 
 
 Again through the palm-girt highways, 
 
 When noontide s sultry flame 
 Was searing the happy vineyards, 
 
 The wonderful Teacher came. 
 
 And the Ruler hailed His coming ; 
 
 For harvest or vintage cheer 
 Never had silenced the question 
 
 That troubled his restless ear. 
 
 Hastening, he sought the Prophet 
 Whose words had wrought the strife : 
 
 "What shall I do, good Master, 
 To inherit eternal life?" 
 
 As he kneeled so young and guileless, 
 
 Single in aim and art, 
 Jesus, beholding him, loved him, 
 
 Though He read his inmost heart. 
 
 And he answered and said, as gently 
 
 As father would say to son : 
 "Thou knowest the Ten Commandments;" 
 
 And he spake them one by one. 
 
 A look that was half reproachful 
 The eye of the Saviour met: 
 
THE YOUNG RULER S QUESTION. 297 
 
 "All these I have kept from childhood; 
 Good Master, what lack I yet?" 
 
 And Jesus; beholding him, loved him, 
 
 And a human sympathy stole, 
 As He gazed on the earnest pleader, 
 
 Deep into His sacred soul. 
 
 All blessings this life could bring him 
 
 Even now were his, He knew ; 
 But he coveted both possessions, 
 
 The earthly and heavenly too. 
 
 Never diviner pity 
 
 Melted the mournful eye, 
 Never a tearfuler yearning, 
 
 Than softened the firm reply : 
 
 "Only one thing thou lackest; 
 
 Forego thy heritage here, 
 All of thy stored abundance, 
 Everything heart holds dear: 
 
 "Choose thee between the blessings, 
 
 This, or the life to be : 
 Thou shalt have treasure in heaven, 
 If thou wilt follow me!" 
 
298 THE TO UNO RULER S QUESTION. 
 
 A sudden, surprised dejection 
 
 Flooded the lifted face, 
 Doubting and disappointment 
 
 Darkened the wistful gaze. 
 
 Verily, this was a doctrine 
 Hard for the flesh and sore; 
 
 This was a self-denying 
 Never conceived before ! 
 
 Had there been half required, 
 Then he might heed the call : 
 
 Dignities, loves, possessions, 
 How could he yield them all? 
 
 Bitter the stern exaction 
 Fell on his heart that day; 
 
 And wavering, wishing, choosing, 
 He sorrowfully went away. 
 
 Ye who have read and marvelled 
 That Jesus, who loved him so, 
 
 Should let him depart unhindered, 
 Will ye, like the Ruler, gj? 
 
 Ponder the solemn question 
 Deep in each conscience s^t, 
 
THE TOUNG RULER S QUESTION. 299 
 
 Asking in soul felt earnest, 
 Master, what lack I yet?" 
 
 Choose ye, as every seeker 
 
 Who findeth Him truly doth, 
 Earthly, or heavenly treasure ; 
 
 For ye cannot inherit both. 
 
 Ye may be near the kingdom, 
 Nearer than any know ; 
 
 And Jesus may love and pity, 
 And yet, He may let you go / 
 
READY. 
 
 I WOULD be ready, Lord, 
 
 My house in order set, 
 None of the work Thou gavest me 
 
 To do, unfinished yet. 
 
 I would be watching, Lord, 
 
 With lamp well-trimmed and clear, 
 
 Quick to throw open wide the door, 
 What time Thou drawest near. 
 
 I would be waiting, Lord, 
 
 Because I cannot know 
 If in the night or morning watch, 
 
 I may be called to go. 
 
 I would be working, Lord, 
 
 Each day, each hour for Thee ; 
 
 Assured that thus I wait Thee well, 
 Whene er Thy coming be. 
 
 300 
 
READY. 3 01 
 
 I would be living, Lord, 
 As ever in Thine eye ; 
 
 For whoso lives the holiest life, 
 
 Is fittest far to die. 
 26 
 
THE TWO MITES. 
 
 " TO-DAY is the .day of oblation, 
 
 And the people with one accord 
 Are bringing their free-will offerings 
 To the treasury of the Lord. 
 
 "With tithings and consecrations 
 
 The faithful are hastening thence; 
 The rich with their sanctuary shekelb, 
 The poor with their hard-earn d pence. 
 
 111 Honor the Lord with thy substance, 
 
 (These are the words divine,) 
 And thy barns shall be filled with plenty, 
 Thy presses shall burst with wine. 
 
 "To me is the precept spoken? 
 Yea, even to me, who am 
 An heir and a child of promise, 
 A daughter of Abraham. 
 
 302 
 
THE TWO MITES. 33 
 
 "Yet in my need and straitness, 
 
 Hardly bestead to live. 
 Desolate, lonely, widowed, 
 What have I left to give? 
 
 "Yet there is quiet solace 
 
 To feel that he cannot know, 
 How the dole he left in the coffer 
 Failed me so long ago. 
 
 "And now I am hoarding in it 
 
 Only two mites, my all; 
 Two mites which make but a farthing, 
 And that is a gift so small ! 
 
 " So small when I count the blessings, 
 
 The marvellous, rich reward 
 I have found in His sacred service, 
 So little to bring my Lord ! 
 
 "Yet naught of our gifts He needeth, 
 
 Whose plenitude boundless is: 
 The corn, the wine and the olives, 
 The flocks and the herds are His. 
 
 "So among the golden talents, 
 
 I will hide my mites, and pray 
 
34 THE TWO MITES. 
 
 That He who feedeth the sparrows, 
 Will keep me in mind to-day. 
 
 " He knoweth I blush to offer 
 
 My penury s straiten d store; 
 But I ll give myself with my farthing, 
 And then He will count it more." 
 
 She wist not that Christ was watching, 
 As she offered her alms so small ; 
 
 She heard not His commendation, 
 
 "She hath given, yea, more than all." 
 
 For the prayer in which she wrapped it 
 Outweighed the treasury s gold; 
 
 And the mites which made but a farthing, 
 Have yielded a million-fold. 
 
THE SYMPATHY OF JESUS. 
 
 i. 
 WHO that hath been sore smitten, who 
 
 That ever sobbed one wordless moan 
 On some warm bosom, fond and true, 
 
 Some sorrowing bosom, like our own, 
 And felt how much those lips close-prest, 
 
 That hand close-claspt, could hush our fears, 
 Can turn to Jesus tenderer breast 
 
 Nor know the chasten d bliss of tears ! 
 
 ii. 
 The earthly heart on which we lean 
 
 May have its separate griefs to bear, 
 A cross undreamed-of, woes unseen, 
 
 Wounds that we lacerate unaware : 
 Its staggering strength may scarce sustain 
 
 The burden of its own distress, 
 And still we heap our cumbering pain, 
 
 Unconscious how the weight may press. 
 
 26* U 305 
 
306 THE SYMPATHY OF JESUS. 
 
 III. 
 But He whose human feet have trod 
 
 All paths of trial, He who knew 
 No sympathy but that of God, 
 
 Though linked with flesh that craved it too,- 
 Yearns with us in our needs, our dreads, 
 
 And mindful of our feeble frame, 
 Holds to His heart our throbbing heads 
 
 With love that hath no mortal name. 
 
 IV. 
 
 We know that on the throne of thrones, 
 
 He wears our lowly nature still ; 
 We know that through the loftiest tones 
 
 With which adoring seraphs thrill, 
 He bends the faintest prayer to hear, 
 
 Though only sighs our anguish tell : 
 That sobbing voice falls on His ear 
 
 Sweeter than Gabriel s ever fell ! 
 
 v. 
 Then, desolate spirit, take the grief 
 
 Thou to no mortal canst disclose, 
 And He will give thee sure relief, 
 
 Touched with the feeling of thy woes 
 
THE SYMPATHY OF JESUS. 37 
 
 And thou shalt learn how all complete, 
 
 How far above earth s purest bliss, 
 How passing more than human-sweet. 
 
 The sympathy of Jesus is ! 
 
THE LITTLE PILGRIMS 
 
 SOILED with the dust of travel, 
 Weary with wandering late, 
 
 Two little lagging pilgrims 
 Paused at the castle gate. 
 
 Sorely their feet had stumbled, 
 Often they d gone astray 
 
 After the fruits and blossoms 
 Scattered along their way. 
 
 Many an hour they d loitered 
 Carelessly on: yet who, 
 
 Seeing the path was rugged, 
 Would not have loitered too? 
 
 Never a hand to check them, 
 Never a smile to cheer; 
 
 Shadowy memories only 
 Filling the childish ear. 
 
 308 
 
THE LITTLE PILGRIMS. 309 
 
 Once as they idly dallied, 
 
 Scallop and staff thrown by, 
 Over them dropt a whisper 
 
 Out of the silent sky. 
 
 Up from their play they started, 
 
 Wetted in haste their lips, 
 Girded themselves for travel, 
 
 Shouldered their scanty scrips; 
 
 Speeding as if belated 
 
 Hurriedly on their way, 
 Softly the younger asking, 
 
 "What did our mother say?" 
 
 u Knock and it shall be ope?ied : 
 
 Ah, if the whisper stirs 
 Both of our hearts so, surely, 
 Surely the voice was hers ! 
 
 "Cannot you mind her saying 
 
 Stretching her arms to go, 
 I will be with you nearer, 
 Oftener than you know? 
 
 " Out of the skies I ll call you, 
 Tenderly leaning through; 
 
310 THE LITTLE PILGRIMS. 
 
 Listen, with faces, darlings, 
 Lifted toward the blue. 
 
 Knock and it shall be opened, 
 Seek and I know yoii II find : 
 These are the words I ll whisper 
 When you are left behind. 
 
 "So, I have heard her, brother, 
 
 When we have tarried late, 
 Calling us little pilgrims, 
 Bidding us seek the gate ; 
 
 "Telling us tis the pathway 
 Out of this world of sin ; 
 Yonder, I see the wicket, 
 Come, let us enter in." 
 
TEMPLE-SERVICE. 
 
 i. 
 I TURN to Thee ! My heart hath been 
 
 A desecrated shrine, 
 And on its holiest altar, where 
 
 Should burn the flame divine, 
 Strange fire consumed a sacrifice 
 
 I made not wholly Thine. 
 
 ii. 
 I knelt with offerings in my hands, 
 
 And ashes on my brow, 
 While yet divided worship breathed 
 
 In every prayer and vow ; 
 To gods beyond the outer courts 
 
 My soul had dared to bow. 
 
 in. 
 
 Cleanse Thou the temple, Great High Priest, 
 Anoint its altar-stone ; 
 
 311 
 
3 J 2 T EMPIRE- SER VICE. 
 
 The blood that wet Thy wounded hands, 
 
 Can purge, restore, atone ; 
 And be each pure oblation sealed 
 
 Henceforth to God alone. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Within Thy golden censer laid, 
 Bear heavenward I implore, 
 
 The bruis d frankincense and the myrrh. 
 The tears and prayers I pour ; 
 
 Nor let irreverent rites profane 
 Thy hallowed service more ! 
 

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