Chapter 3 TO-MORROW.

All red with joy the waiting west,

O little swallow,

Couldst thou tell me which road is best?

Cleaving high air with thy soft breast

For keel, O swallow,

Thou must o'erlook

My seas and know if I mistake;

I would not the same harbor make

Which yesterday forsook.

I hear the swift blades dip and plash

Of unseen rowers;

On unknown land the waters dash;

Who knows how it be wise or rash

To meet the rowers!

Premì! Premì!

Venetia's boatmen lean and cry;

With voiceless lips I drift and lie

Upon the twilight sea.

The swallow sleeps. Her last low call

Had sound of warning.

Sweet little one, whate'er befall,

Thou wilt not know that it was all

In vain thy warning.

I may not borrow

A hope, a help. I close my eyes;

Cold wind blows from the Bridge of Sighs;

Kneeling I wait to-morrow.

Venice, May 30.

H.H. Jackson.

* * *

In the Twilight.

Men say the sullen instrument

That, from the Master's bow,

With pangs of joy or woe,

Feels music's soul through every fibre sent,

Whispers the ravished strings

More than he knew or meant;

Old summers in its memory glow;

The secrets of the wind it sings;

It hears the April-loosened springs;

And mixes with its mood

All it dreamed when it stood

In the murmurous pine-wood

Long ago!

The magical moonlight then

Steeped every bough and cone;

The roar of the brook in the glen

Came dim from the distance blown;

The wind through its glooms sang low,

And it swayed to and fro

With delight as it stood,

In the wonderful wood,

Long ago!

O my life, have we not had seasons

That only said, "Live and rejoice?"

That asked not for causes and reasons,

But made us all feeling and voice?

When we went with the winds in their blowing,

When Nature and we were peers,

And we seemed to share in the flowing

Of the inexhaustible years?

Have we not from the earth drawn juices

Too fine for earth's sordid uses?

Have I heard, have I seen

All I feel and I know?

Doth my heart overween?

Or could it have been

Long ago?

Sometimes a breath floats by me,

An odor from Dreamland sent,

That makes the ghost seem nigh me

Of a splendor that came and went,

Of a life lived somewhere, I know not

In what diviner sphere,

Of memories that stay not and go not,

Like music heard once by an ear

That cannot forget or reclaim it,

A something so shy, it would shame it

To make it a show,

A something too vague, could I name it,

For others to know,

As if I had lived it or dreamed it,

As if I had acted or schemed it,

Long ago!

And yet, could I live it over,

This life that stirs in my brain,

Could I be both maiden and lover,

Moon and tide, bee and clover,

As I seem to have been, once again,

Could I but speak and show it,

This pleasure more sharp than pain,

That baffles and lures me so,

The world should not lack a poet,

Such as it had

In the ages glad,

Long ago!

J.R. Lowell.

* * *

The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls.

The tide rises, the tide falls,

The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;

Along the sea-sands damp and brown

The traveller hastens toward the town,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,

But the sea in the darkness calls and calls;

The little waves, with their soft, white hands,

Efface the footprints in the sands,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls

Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;

The day returns, but nevermore

Returns the traveller to the shore,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

H.W. Longfellow.

* * *

The Fall of the Leaf.

The evening of the year draws on,

The fields a later aspect wear;

Since Summer's garishness is gone,

Some grains of night tincture the noontide air.

Behold! the shadows of the trees

Now circle wider 'bout their stem,

Like sentries that by slow degrees

Perform their rounds, gently protecting them.

And as the year doth decline,

The sun allows a scantier light;

Behind each needle of the pine

There lurks a small auxiliar to the night.

I hear the cricket's slumbrous lay

Around, beneath me, and on high;

It rocks the night, it soothes the day,

And everywhere is Nature's lullaby.

But most he chirps beneath the sod,

When he has made his winter bed;

His creak grown fainter but more broad,

A film of Autumn o'er the Summer spread.

Small birds, in fleets migrating by,

Now beat across some meadow's bay,

And as they tack and veer on high,

With faint and hurried click beguile the way.

Far in the woods, these golden days,

Some leaf obeys its Maker's call;

And through their hollow aisles it plays

With delicate touch the prelude of the Fall.

Gently withdrawing from its stem,

It lightly lays itself along

Where the same hand hath pillowed them,

Resigned to sleep upon the old year's throng.

The loneliest birch is brown and sere,

The furthest pool is strewn with leaves,

Which float upon their watery bier,

Where is no eye that sees, no heart that grieves.

The jay screams through the chestnut wood;

The crisped and yellow leaves around

Are hue and texture of my mood,-

And these rough burrs my heirlooms on the ground.

The threadbare trees, so poor and thin,-

They are no wealthier than I;

But with as brave a core within

They rear their boughs to the October sky.

Poor knights they are which bravely wait

The charge of Winter's cavalry,

Keeping a simple Roman state,

Discumbered of their Persian luxury.

H.D. Thoreau.

* * *

The Rhodora.

ON BEING ASKED, WHENCE IS THE FLOWER?

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,

I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,

Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,

To please the desert and the sluggish brook.

The purple petals, fallen in the pool,

Made the black water with their beauty gay;

Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,

And court the flower that cheapens his array.

Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why

This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,

Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,

Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:

Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!

I never thought to ask, I never knew:

But, in my simple ignorance, suppose

The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.

R.W. Emerson.

* * *

Nature.

O nature! I do not aspire

To be the highest in thy quire,-

To be a meteor in the sky,

Or comet that may range on high;

Only a zephyr that may blow

Among the reeds by the river low;

Give me thy most privy place

Where to run my airy race.

In some withdrawn, unpublic mead

Let me sigh upon a reed,

Or in the woods, with leafy din,

Whisper the still evening in.

Some still work give me to do,-

Only-be it near to you!

For I'd rather be thy child

And pupil, in the forest wild,

Than be the king of men elsewhere,

And most sovereign slave of care.

H.D. Thoreau.

* * *

My Strawberry.

O marvel, fruit of fruits, I pause

To reckon thee. I ask what cause

Set free so much of red from heats

At core of earth, and mixed such sweets

With sour and spice: what was that strength

Which out of darkness, length by length,

Spun all thy shining thread of vine,

Netting the fields in bond as thine.

I see thy tendrils drink by sips

From grass and clover's smiling lips;

I hear thy roots dig down for wells,

Tapping the meadow's hidden cells;

Whole generations of green things,

Descended from long lines of springs,

I see make room for thee to bide

A quiet comrade by their side;

I see the creeping peoples go

Mysterious journeys to and fro,

Treading to right and left of thee,

Doing thee homage wonderingly.

I see the wild bees as they fare,

Thy cups of honey drink, but spare.

I mark thee bathe and bathe again

In sweet uncalendared spring rain.

I watch how all May has of sun

Makes haste to have thy ripeness done,

While all her nights let dews escape

To set and cool thy perfect shape.

Ah, fruit of fruits, no more I pause

To dream and seek thy hidden laws!

I stretch my hand and dare to taste,

In instant of delicious waste

On single feast, all things that went

To make the empire thou hast spent.

H.H. Jackson.

* * *

The Humble-bee.

Burly, dozing humble-bee,

Where thou art is clime for me.

Let them sail for Porto Rique,

Far-off heats through seas to seek;

I will follow thee alone,

Thou animated torrid-zone!

Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer,

Let me chase thy waving lines;

Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,

Singing over shrubs and vines.

Insect lover of the sun,

Joy of thy dominion!

Sailor of the atmosphere;

Swimmer through the waves of air;

Voyager of light and noon;

Epicurean of June;

Wait, I prithee, till I come

Within earshot of thy hum,-

All without is martyrdom.

When the south wind, in May days,

With a net of shining haze

Silvers the horizon wall,

And with softness touching all,

Tints the human countenance

With a color of romance,

And infusing subtle heats,

Turns the sod to violets,

Thou, in sunny solitudes,

Rover of the underwoods,

The green silence dost displace

With thy mellow, breezy bass.

Hot midsummer's petted crone,

Sweet to me thy drowsy tone

Tells of countless sunny hours,

Long days, and solid banks of flowers;

Of gulfs of sweetness without bound

In Indian wildernesses found;

Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure,

Firmest cheer, and bird-like pleasure.

Aught unsavory or unclean

Hath my insect never seen;

But violets and bilberry bells,

Maple-sap and daffodels,

Grass with green flag half-mast high,

Succory to match the sky,

Columbine with horn of honey,

Scented fern, and agrimony,

Clover, catchfly, adder's-tongue,

And brier-roses, dwelt among;

All beside was unknown waste,

All was picture as he passed.

Wiser far than human seer,

Yellow-breeched philosopher!

Seeing only what is fair,

Sipping only what is sweet,

Thou dost mock at fate and care,

Leave the chaff, and take the wheat.

When the fierce northwestern blast

Cools sea and land so far and fast,

Thou already slumberest deep;

Woe and want thou canst outsleep;

Want and woe, which torture us,

Thy sleep makes ridiculous.

R.W. Emerson.

* * *

The Summer Rain.

My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read.

'Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at large

Down in the meadow, where is richer feed,

And will not mind to hit their proper targe.

Plutarch was good, and so was Homer too,

Our Shakespeare's life were rich to live again,

What Plutarch read, that was not good nor true,

Nor Shakespeare's books, unless his books were men.

Here while I lie beneath this walnut bough,

What care I for the Greeks or for Troy town,

If juster battles are enacted now

Between the ants upon this hummock's crown?

Bid Homer wait till I the issue learn,

If red or black the gods will favor most,

Or yonder Ajax will the phalanx turn,

Struggling to heave some rock against the host.

Tell Shakespeare to attend some leisure hour,

For now I've business with this drop of dew,

And see you not, the clouds prepare a shower,-

I'll meet him shortly when the sky is blue.

This bed of herdsgrass and wild oats was spread

Last year with nicer skill than monarchs use;

A clover tuft is pillow for my head,

And violets quite overtop my shoes.

And now the cordial clouds have shut all in,

And gently swells the wind to say all's well;

The scattered drops are falling fast and thin,

Some in the pool, some in the flower-bell.

I am well drenched upon my bed of oats;

But see that globe come rolling down its stem,

Now like a lonely planet there it floats,

And now it sinks into my garment's hem.

Drip, drip the trees for all the country round,

And richness rare distills from every bough;

The wind alone it is makes every sound,

Shaking down crystals on the leaves below.

For shame the sun will never show himself,

Who could not with his beams e'er melt me so;

My dripping locks,-they would become an elf,

Who in a beaded coat does gayly go.

H.D. Thoreau.

* * *

To the Dandelion.

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,

Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,

First pledge of blithesome May,

Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold,

High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they

An Eldorado in the grass have found,

Which not the rich earth's ample round

May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me

Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be.

Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow

Through the primeval hush of Indian seas,

Nor wrinkled the lean brow

Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease;

'Tis the Spring's largess, which she scatters now

To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand,

Though most hearts never understand

To take it at God's value, but pass by

The offered wealth with unrewarded eye.

Thou art my tropics and mine Italy;

To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime;

The eyes thou givest me

Are in the heart, and heed not space or time:

Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee

Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment

In the white lily's breezy tent,

His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first

From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.

Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,

Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze,

Where, as the breezes pass,

The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,

Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,

Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue

That from the distance sparkle through

Some woodland gap, and of a sky above,

Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.

My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee;

The sight of thee calls back the robin's song,

Who, from the dark old tree

Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,

And I, secure in childish piety,

Listened as if I heard an angel sing

With news from heaven, which he could bring

Fresh every day to my untainted ears

When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.

How like a prodigal doth Nature seem,

When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!

Thou teachest me to deem

More sacredly of every human heart,

Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam

Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,

Did we but pay the love we owe,

And with a child's undoubting wisdom look

On all these living pages of God's book.

J.R. Lowell.

* * *

The Chambered Nautilus.

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,

Sails the unshadowed main,-

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings

In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;

Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,

As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,

Before thee lies revealed,-

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

O.W. Holmes.

* * *

Thought.

O messenger, art thou the king, or I?

Thou dalliest outside the palace gate

Till on thine idle armor lie the late

And heavy dews. The morn's bright scornful eye

Reminds thee; then, in subtle mockery,

Thou smilest at the window where I wait,

Who bade thee ride for life. In empty state

My days go on, while false hours prophesy

Thy quick return; at last, in sad despair,

I cease to bid thee, leave thee free as air;

When lo, thou stand'st before me glad and fleet,

And lay'st undreamed-of treasures at my feet.

Ah! messenger, thy royal blood to buy

I am too poor. Thou art the king, not I.

H.H. Jackson.

* * *

Stanzas.

Thought is deeper than all speech,

Feeling deeper than all thought;

Souls to souls can never teach

What unto themselves was taught.

We are spirits clad in veils:

Man by man was never seen;

All our deep communing fails

To remove the shadowy screen.

Heart to heart was never known;

Mind with mind did never meet;

We are columns left alone

Of a temple once complete.

Like the stars that gem the sky,

Far apart, though seeming near,

In our light we scattered lie;

All is thus but starlight here.

What is social company

But a babbling summer stream?

What our wise philosophy

But the glancing of a dream?

Only when the sun of love

Melts the scattered stars of thought;

Only when we live above

What the dim-eyed world hath taught;

Only when our souls are fed

By the Fount which gave them birth,

And by inspiration led,

Which they never drew from earth,

We, like parted drops of rain

Swelling till they meet and run,

Shall be all absorbed again,

Melting, flowing into one.

C.P. Cranch.

* * *

Coronation.

At the king's gate the subtle noon

Wove filmy yellow nets of sun;

Into the drowsy snare too soon

The guards fell one by one.

Through the king's gate, unquestioned then,

A beggar went, and laughed, "This brings

Me chance, at last, to see if men

Fare better, being kings."

The king sat bowed beneath his crown,

Propping his face with listless hand;

Watching the hour-glass sifting down

Too slow its shining sand.

"Poor man, what wouldst thou have of me?"

The beggar turned, and, pitying,

Replied, like one in dream, "Of thee,

Nothing. I want the king."

Uprose the king, and from his head

Shook off the crown and threw it by.

"O man, thou must have known," he said,

"A greater king than I."

Through all the gates, unquestioned then,

Went king and beggar hand in hand.

Whispered the king, "Shall I know when

Before his throne I stand?"

The beggar laughed. Free winds in haste

Were wiping from the king's hot brow

The crimson lines the crown had traced.

"This is his presence now."

At the king's gate the crafty noon

Unwove its yellow nets of sun;

Out of their sleep in terror soon

The guards waked one by one.

"Ho here! Ho there! Has no man seen

The king?" The cry ran to and fro;

Beggar and king, they laughed, I ween,

The laugh that free men know.

On the king's gate the moss grew gray;

The king came not. They called him dead;

And made his eldest son one day

Slave in his father's stead.

H.H. Jackson.

* * *

On a Bust of Dante.

See, from this counterfeit of him

Whom Arno shall remember long,

How stern of lineament, how grim,

The father was of Tuscan song:

There but the burning sense of wrong,

Perpetual care and scorn, abide;

Small friendship for the lordly throng;

Distrust of all the world beside.

Faithful if this wan image be,

No dream his life was,-but a fight;

Could any Beatrice see

A lover in that anchorite?

To that cold Ghibelline's gloomy sight

Who could have guessed the visions came

Of Beauty, veiled with heavenly light,

In circles of eternal flame?

The lips as Cum?'s cavern close,

The cheeks with fast and sorrow thin,

The rigid front, almost morose,

But for the patient hope within,

Declare a life whose course hath been

Unsullied still, though still severe;

Which, through the wavering days of sin,

Kept itself icy-chaste and clear.

Not wholly such his haggard look

When wandering once, forlorn, he strayed,

With no companion save his book,

To Corvo's hushed monastic shade;

Where, as the Benedictine laid

His palm upon the convent's guest,

The single boon for which he prayed

Was peace, that pilgrim's one request.

Peace dwells not here,-this rugged face

Betrays no spirit of repose;

The sullen warrior sole we trace,

The marble man of many woes.

Such was his mien when first arose

The thought of that strange tale divine,

When hell he peopled with his foes,

The scourge of many a guilty line.

War to the last he waged with all

The tyrant canker-worms of earth;

Baron and duke, in hold and hall,

Cursed the dark hour that gave him birth;

He used Rome's harlot for his mirth;

Plucked bare hypocrisy and crime;

But valiant souls of knightly worth

Transmitted to the rolls of Time.

O Time! whose verdicts mock our own,

The only righteous judge art thou;

That poor old exile, sad and lone,

Is Latium's other Virgil now:

Before his name the nations bow;

His words are parcel of mankind,

Deep in whose hearts, as on his brow,

The marks have sunk of Dante's mind.

T.W. Parsons.

* * *

Pan in Wall Street.

A.D. 1867.

Just where the Treasury's marble front

Looks over Wall Street's mingled nations;

Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont

To throng for trade and last quotations;

Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold

Outrival, in the ears of people,

The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled

From Trinity's undaunted steeple,-

Even there I heard a strange, wild strain

Sound high above the modern clamor,

Above the cries of greed and gain,

The curbstone war, the auction's hammer;

And swift, on Music's misty ways,

It led, from all this strife for millions,

To ancient, sweet-do-nothing days

Among the kirtle-robed Sicilians.

And as it stilled the multitude,

And yet more joyous rose, and shriller,

I saw the minstrel, where he stood

At ease against a Doric pillar:

One hand a droning organ played,

The other held a Pan's-pipe (fashioned

Like those of old) to lips that made

The reeds give out that strain impassioned.

'Twas Pan himself had wandered here

A-strolling through this sordid city,

And piping to the civic ear

The prelude of some pastoral ditty!

The demigod had crossed the seas,-

From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr,

And Syracusan times,-to these

Far shores and twenty centuries later.

A ragged cap was on his head;

But-hidden thus-there was no doubting

That, all with crispy locks o'erspread,

His gnarlèd horns were somewhere sprouting;

His club-feet, cased in rusty shoes,

Were crossed, as on some frieze you see them,

And trousers, patched of divers hues,

Concealed his crooked shanks beneath them.

He filled the quivering reeds with sound,

And o'er his mouth their changes shifted,

And with his goat's-eyes looked around

Where'er the passing current drifted;

And soon, as on Trinacrian hills

The nymphs and herdsmen ran to hear him,

Even now the tradesmen from their tills,

With clerks and porters, crowded near him.

The bulls and bears together drew

From Jauncey Court and New Street Alley,

As erst, if pastorals be true,

Came beasts from every wooded valley;

The random passers stayed to list,-

A boxer ?gon, rough and merry,

A Broadway Daphnis, on his tryst

With Nais at the Brooklyn Ferry.

A one-eyed Cyclops halted long

In tattered cloak of army pattern,

And Galatea joined the throng,-

A blowsy, apple-vending slattern;

While old Silenus staggered out

From some new-fangled lunch-house handy,

And bade the piper, with a shout,

To strike up Yankee Doodle Dandy!

A newsboy and a peanut-girl

Like little Fauns began to caper:

His hair was all in tangled curl,

Her tawny legs were bare and taper;

And still the gathering larger grew,

And gave its pence and crowded nigher,

While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew

His pipe, and struck the gamut higher.

O heart of Nature, beating still

With throbs her vernal passion taught her,-

Even here, as on the vine-clad hill,

Or by the Arethusan water!

New forms may fold the speech, new lands

Arise within these ocean-portals,

But Music waves eternal wands,-

Enchantress of the souls of mortals!

So thought I,-but among us trod

A man in blue, with legal baton,

And scoffed the vagrant demigod,

And pushed him from the step I sat on.

Doubting, I mused upon the cry,

"Great Pan is dead!"-and all the people

Went on their ways:-and clear and high

The quarter sounded from the steeple.

E.C. Stedman.

* * *

Auspex.

My heart, I cannot still it,

Nest that had song-birds in it;

And when the last shall go,

The dreary days, to fill it,

Instead of lark or linnet,

Shall whirl dead leaves and snow.

Had they been swallows only,

Without the passion stronger

That skyward longs and sings,-

Woe's me, I shall be lonely

When I can feel no longer

The impatience of their wings!

A moment, sweet delusion,

Like birds the brown leaves hover;

But it will not be long

Before their wild confusion

Fall wavering down to cover

The poet and his song.

J.R. Lowell.

* * *

Birds.[5]

Birds are singing round my window,

Tunes the sweetest ever heard,

And I hang my cage there daily,

But I never catch a bird.

So with thoughts my brain is peopled,

And they sing there all day long:

But they will not fold their pinions

In the little cage of Song.

R.H. Stoddard.

[5] From "The Poems of R.H. Stoddard," copyright, 1880, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

* * *

Toujours Amour.

Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin,

At what age does Love begin?

Your blue eyes have scarcely seen

Summers three, my fairy queen,

But a miracle of sweets,

Soft approaches, sly retreats,

Show the little archer there,

Hidden in your pretty hair;

When didst learn a heart to win?

Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin!

"Oh!" the rosy lips reply,

"I can't tell you if I try.

'Tis so long I can't remember:

Ask some younger lass than I!"

Tell, oh, tell me, Grizzled-Face,

Do your heart and head keep pace?

When does hoary Love expire,

When do frosts put out the fire?

Can its embers burn below

All that chill December snow?

Care you still soft hands to press,

Bonny heads to smooth and bless?

When does Love give up the chase?

Tell, oh, tell me, Grizzled-Face!

"Ah!" the wise old lips reply,

"Youth may pass and strength may die;

But of Love I can't foretoken:

Ask some older sage than I!"

E.C. Stedman.

* * *

A Sigh.

It was nothing but a rose I gave her,-

Nothing but a rose

Any wind might rob of half its savor,

Any wind that blows.

When she took it from my trembling fingers

With a hand as chill,-

Ah, the flying touch upon them lingers,

Stays, and thrills them still!

Withered, faded, pressed between the pages,

Crumpled fold on fold,-

Once it lay upon her breast, and ages

Cannot make it old!

H.P. Spofford.

* * *

No More.

This is the Burden of the Heart,

The Burden that it always bore:

We live to love; we meet to part;

And part to meet on earth No More:

We clasp each other to the heart,

And part to meet on earth No More.

There is a time for tears to start,-

For dews to fall and larks to soar:

The Time for Tears, is when we part

To meet upon the earth No More:

The Time for Tears, is when we part

To meet on this wide earth-No More.

B.F. Willson.

* * *

To a Young Girl Dying.

WITH A GIFT OF FRESH PALM-LEAVES.

This is Palm Sunday: mindful of the day,

I bring palm branches, found upon my way:

But these will wither; thine shall never die,-

The sacred palms thou bearest to the sky!

Dear little saint, though but a child in years,

Older in wisdom than my gray compeers!

We doubt and tremble,-we, with bated breath,

Talk of this mystery of life and death:

Thou, strong in faith, art gifted to conceive

Beyond thy years, and teach us to believe!

Then take my palms, triumphal, to thy home,

Gentle white palmer, never more to roam!

Only, sweet sister, give me, ere thou go'st,

Thy benediction,-for my love thou know'st!

We, too, are pilgrims, travelling towards the shrine:

Pray that our pilgrimage may end like thine!

T.W. Parsons.

* * *

The Port of Ships.[6]

Behind him lay the gray Azores,

Behind the Gates of Hercules;

Before him not the ghost of shores,

Before him only shoreless seas.

The good mate said: "Now must we pray,

For lo! the very stars are gone.

Brave Adm'ral speak,-what shall I say?"

"Why, say, 'Sail on! Sail on! and on!'"

"My men grow mutinous day by day;

My men grow ghastly, wan and weak."

The stout mate thought of home; a spray

Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.

"What shall I say, brave Adm'ral, say,

If we sight naught but seas at dawn?"

"Why, you shall say, at break of day,

'Sail on! Sail on! Sail on! and on!'"

They sailed, and sailed, as winds might blow,

Until at last the blanched mate said:

"Why, now not even God would know

Should I and all my men fall dead.

These very winds forget their way,

For God from these dread seas is gone.

Now speak, brave Adm'ral; speak, and say-"

He said: "Sail on! Sail on! and on!"

They sailed! They sailed! Then spake the mate:

"This mad sea shows its teeth to-night;

He curls his lip, he lies in wait

With lifted teeth, as if to bite!

Brave Adm'ral, say but one good word,-

What shall we do when hope is gone?"

The words leaped as a leaping sword:

"Sail on! Sail on! Sail on! and on!"

C.H. Miller.

[6] From The Complete Poetical Works of Joaquin Miller.

* * *

Paradisi Gloria.

There is a city, builded by no hand,

And unapproachable by sea or shore,

And unassailable by any band

Of storming soldiery for evermore.

There we no longer shall divide our time

By acts or pleasures,-doing petty things

Of work or warfare, merchandise or rhyme;

But we shall sit beside the silver springs

That flow from God's own footstool, and behold

Sages and martyrs, and those blessed few

Who loved us once and were beloved of old,

To dwell with them and walk with them anew,

In alternations of sublime repose,

Musical motion, the perpetual play

Of every faculty that Heaven bestows

Through the bright, busy, and eternal day.

T.W. Parsons.

* * *

Ballad.

In the summer even,

While yet the dew was hoar,

I went plucking purple pansies,

Till my love should come to shore.

The fishing-lights their dances

Were keeping out at sea,

And come, I sung, my true love!

Come hasten home to me!

But the sea, it fell a-moaning,

And the white gulls rocked thereon;

And the young moon dropped from heaven,

And the lights hid one by one.

All silently their glances

Slipped down the cruel sea,

And wait! cried the night and wind and storm,-

Wait, till I come to thee!

H.P. Spofford.

* * *

BOOK THIRD.

* * *

The Fool's Prayer.

The royal feast was done; the King

Sought some new sport to banish care,

And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,

Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"

The jester doffed his cap and bells,

And stood the mocking court before;

They could not see the bitter smile

Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee

Upon the monarch's silken stool;

His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!

"No pity, Lord, could change the heart

From red with wrong to white as wool;

The rod must heal the sin: but, Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!

"'Tis not by guilt the onward sweep

Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;

'Tis by our follies that so long

We hold the earth from heaven away.

"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,

Go crushing blossoms without end;

These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust

Among the heart-strings of a friend.

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept-

Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?

The word we had not sense to say-

Who knows how grandly it had rung?

"Our faults no tenderness should ask,

The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;

But for our blunders-oh, in shame

Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;

Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool

That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!"

The room was hushed; in silence rose

The King, and sought his gardens cool,

And walked apart, and murmured low,

"Be merciful to me, a fool!"

E.R. Sill.

* * *

On The Life-mask Of Abraham Lincoln.

This bronze doth keep the very form and mold

Of our great martyr's face. Yes, this is he:

That brow all wisdom, all benignity;

That human, humorous mouth; those cheeks that hold

Like some harsh landscape all the summer's gold;

That spirit fit for sorrow, as the sea

For storms to beat on; the lone agony

Those silent, patient lips too well foretold.

Yes, this is he who ruled a world of men

As might some prophet of the elder day,-

Brooding above the tempest and the fray

With deep-eyed thought and more than mortal ken.

A power was his beyond the touch of art

Or armèd strength: his pure and mighty heart.

R.W. Gilder.

* * *

Song.

Years have flown since I knew thee first,

And I know thee as water is known of thirst:

Yet I knew thee of old at the first sweet sight,

And thou art strange to me, Love, to-night.

R.W. Gilder.

* * *

To A Dead Woman.[7]

Not a kiss in life; but one kiss, at life's end,

I have set on the face of Death in trust for thee.

Through long years keep it fresh on thy lips, O friend!

At the gate of Silence give it back to me.

H.C. Bunner.

[7] From "The Poems of H.C. Bunner," copyright, 1884, 1892, 1896, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

* * *

Destiny.

Three roses, wan as moonlight, and weighed down

Each with its loveliness as with a crown,

Drooped in a florist's window in a town.

The first a lover bought. It lay at rest,

Like flower on flower, that night, on Beauty's breast.

The second rose, as virginal and fair,

Shrunk in the tangles of a harlot's hair.

The third, a widow, with new grief made wild,

Shut in the icy palm of her dead child.

T.B. Aldrich.

* * *

The Kings.

A man said unto his angel:

"My spirits are fallen thro',

And I cannot carry this battle;

O brother! what shall I do?

"The terrible Kings are on me,

With spears that are deadly bright,

Against me so from the cradle

Do fate and my fathers fight."

Then said to the man his angel:

"Thou wavering, foolish soul,

Back to the ranks! What matter

To win or to lose the whole,

"As judged by the little judges

Who hearken not well, nor see?

Not thus, by the outer issue,

The Wise shall interpret thee.

"Thy will is the very, the only,

The solemn event of things;

The weakest of hearts defying

Is stronger than all these Kings.

"Tho' out of the past they gather,

Mind's Doubt and bodily Pain,

And pallid Thirst of the Spirit

That is kin to the other twain,

"And Grief, in a cloud of banners,

And ringletted Vain Desires,

And Vice with the spoils upon him

Of thee and thy beaten sires,

"While Kings of eternal evil

Yet darken the hills about,

Thy part is with broken sabre

To rise on the last redoubt;

"To fear not sensible failure,

Nor covet the game at all,

But fighting, fighting, fighting,

Die, driven against the wall!"