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JULIA CARTER ALDRICH,
(PETRESIA PETERS.)

[1]

HAZEL BLOOM,

BY
JULIA CARTER ALDRICH.
(PETRESIA PETERS.)

Mother! O, holy music in the sound

Of that dear word—Mother! O, visions sweet

That crowd the mind and thickly cluster round,

To drive out tempting wiles, and leave replete

The soul’s most lofty plans, and purest thought!

* * * * *

Could man have known the part divine, repressed

Through youthful life, for noblest womanhood,

When she should pass to dear maternity—

Had he the Christ, in Mother, rightly known,

Kind Heaven had spared the pains of Calvary.

Through her the first of Heavenly love is shown—

Through her, first glimpses caught of Christ, of God.

B. F. Aldrich.

BUFFALO:
Charles Wells Moulton,
1899.

[2]

[3]

In memory of that sainted one,
My Mother,
This volume is inscribed to the
Mothers—
The Home-makers of our land,
By one who has known
The breadth and depth
Of maternal hope and joy—
Whose soul has continually drank,
Thro’ all the years of
Motherhood,
From that well-spring of
Blessing—
Unfailing, filial devotion.

J. C. A.

[4]

[5]

INDEX.

The Weaver	9
Mystery	11
In Childhood’s Years	14
In the City of Suffering	15
Heliotrope	18
Constancy	20
Estranged	22
My Inkstand	25
History of One Life	26
Evening	27
Rondeaux	29
Solace of the Flowers	30
Regret	32
Hazel Bloom	35
Life’s Shuttle	38
Springtime	40
For Insomnia	42
Mother	45
Eoline’s Dream	48
Our Own	52
Wounded Faith	55
Destiny	57
Unclaimed	60[6]
Death	61
Night-Blooming Cereus	64
My Muse	66
We Never Know	68
A June in Childhood	70
Goldenrod	74
An Evening in June	75
Yosemite	77
Blight or Blessing	80
O, For a Rainy Day	82
The Great Poet	83
Love’s Riches	88
Complainings	90
Questionings	92
Persecuted	94
O, Kindly Speak	96
He is Risen	97
The Christ	99
Feed My Lambs	102
The Kingdom of Heaven	103
Supplication	106
The Portrait	107
Out in the Woods	109
Unforgiven	112
The Evening and the Morning	114
The Unseen	116
Painting	117[7]
The Christian’s Armor	120
To My Friend	121
Hill-Crest Home	124
Lilies of the Valley	135
Pearly Shells	138
Courage	140
Trailing Arbutus	141
Encouragement	145
Faith	147
Nirvana	149
Heredity	150
Pebbles	152
Words	157
Mother	159
Hands	161
Endymion	163
Calypso—The Lover’s Pocket	167
What is Love	171
Sleighing	173
First Love	175
Man	176
Trust of Childhood	177
Alone	180
Night	183
Disappointment	185
Love’s Ideal	186
A Legend of the Lily	187[8]
To James Newton Mathews	190
The Great Hereafter	191
Late October	195
On the Beach	198
Hidden	200
My Robins are Gone	202
Winterbloom	204
The Old Home	206
Thought	209
Columbus	212

[9]

HAZEL BLOOM

The Weaver.

With warm desire to please the captious ones,

Whose fervency the finished fabric suns,

With ardent conjurations she besought

The thronging sprites, that feed the loom of thought,

To gather shining woof, from climes afar—

From lands where all things bright and wondrous are—

To seek the dame whose tireless hand doth hold

The distaff yielding threads of fine spun gold,

And bring the gathered treasures in to her,

All sweet with far-fetched frankincense and myrrh:

Instead of quest in distant lands for woof

From near they brought, and with it sharp reproof.

“The glow and flame of thy desire

Is lit by an unholy fire.

[10]

We bring thee shreds for needs of life

With which its ways are ever rife;

Weave these as we shall bring them in

(None leads with Lotus-charm to sin)

And when the web falls from thy care,

Who needs takes self-apportioned share.

If one is girt by it for storm,

Or one lone home, made glad and warm—

If one bruised heart finds through it balm,

One groping soul, up-lifting psalm,

Then, thank thy God that thou hast wrought

The humble shreds that we have brought.”

[11]

Mystery.

All the earth’s history

Is mingled with mystery;

Thrid its long pathways thro’ Time’s gathered pages,

Struggle with theories,—delve as you will,

Wrapped in uncertainty, mystery still,

Baffling the lore of philosophy’s sages.

Wishes ungratified,

Longings unsatisfied;

Search is untiring and effort is eager,

Reaching for aye for the far, unattained,

Feeling the spirit to narrowness chained,—

All we may know, to the unknown is meager.

Yet, human pomposity,

Rich in verbosity,

Leads us afar, thro’ the limitless spaces,

Parting so boldly the cometal robes,

Shows us their bodies, as infantile globes,

Sportively seeking maturity’s places.

It measures Infinity,

Questions Divinity—Talks

[12]

of the universe at its inception;

Theory, feeling the pulse of the Earth,

Tells us how long since the planet had birth

And when we may look for its utter disruption.

Yet Life’s remote decimal—

The infinitesimal,

Puzzles the agnost for Nature’s great mother;

Never a blade without fertilized germ,—

Never a seed without blossoming term,—

Each is a subsequent unto the other.

* * * * *

Most wondrous, mysterious,

Throned and imperious,

Mind, in the beautiful temple of Being,

Rules o’er its realm with absolute sway

Till, broken and crumbling, the structure of clay,

Then swift on the wings of the silences fleeing.

Thought, strained to intensity,

Ranging immensity,

Asks for their home—for the spirit’s bright heaven;

A speck in the universe—our little earth,

’Mong millions, all grander and greater of girth—

Will God’s central glory to this one be given?

[13]

Ah! Safely He has hidden it,

From earth-gaze forbidden it:

Humbled and weary the bold Thought, returning,

Nestles down closer to God’s written word;

By grief’s parching thirst its sweet fountains are stirred;

Its pages yield balm that will soothe the heart’s yearning.

There, Heaven comes near to us,—

Those who were dear to us,

Safe in its mansions—we’ll question not where,—

Live in the light of an Infinite Love!

Faith sweetly whispers—“They beckon above,—

The loved ones, who’ve left us, are waiting us there.”

The hidden earth-histories—

The sought-after mysteries

Are veiled, but in blessing;—we seek for them ever;

Wisdom hath woven this mystical bond,

Binding the soul to God’s greater Beyond,

Enlarging, enriching, thro’ constant endeavor.

[14]

In Childhood’s Years.

In childhood’s years, what dreamy days

In spring’s soft airs or autumn’s haze!

How golden bright the sunset skies

Where just beyond our heaven lies!

Each dawn the sun has merry plays

With Rosy-mist, who veils his rays

To shield us from his glory blaze,

While she paints morn such lovely dyes

In Childhood’s years.

We tread but joy-lit, sunny ways,

Nor dream of dread, that is decay’s:—

No sorrow comes but quickly flies—

No love is known that cools and dies—

No crafty selfishness betrays

In childhood’s years.

[15]

In the City of Suffering.[1]

In the city of suffering souls grow large,

And money-greed languishing lies;

’Neath the hurrying feet, of God’s messengers there,

That pompous, old Selfishness dies:

Ambition, so eagerly climbing to heights

Where glory, alone, is the prize,

Forgets his wild dreams at the shriek of distress

And goes where Humanity cries.

In the city of suffering, sympathies blend

As valley rills, blend in a stream;

The high, and the low, all forgetful of rank,

Are thrilled by calamity’s scream.

There Wealth’s jeweled hand and the toil-hardened palm,

Have neither a preference in claim,

But agony ardently stretching them forth,

Makes common appeal, in His name.

[16]

In the city of suffering hearts grow warm—

Aye, flame in the darkness of woe;

The spark God gave, from His infinite love,

Neath the hot breath of pain is aglow.

There, swift to the rescue, goes valorous strength,

Surprising the world with his deeds—

There, Courage will struggle with death for a life,

While yielding his own up, if needs.

In the city of Suffering, Avarice hides

In the gloomy old vault with his gold,

Nor dares to meet Charity’s love-lighted face,

His own is so pitiless and cold;

There, cowardice, envy—all drosses of soul

In the crucial test are consumed—

Dark altars, once glowing with brotherly love,

In the shadow of sorrow, relumed.

The city of Suffering is Heaven’s wide door

For victims its horrors enthrall;

E’en martyrs have sung when the fagots blazed high—

So ever He heareth our call;

[17]

And those who, with fellow-love prompting their deeds,

Fought there, with the mounting flame fiends,

Have wrought in the plan, for ennobling the world,

With God’s own, mysterious means.

In the city of Suffering souls break the bonds

That indolent selfishness forged in the womb,

And lives, that were dwarfed by their mammon-cut groove,

Find growth in Love’s labor, and sunshine in gloom.

When raven-winged Sorrow sweeps over the land,

An angel attends where its shadow may fall,

And, out from its darkness, brings heavenly light,

And faith, in the Wisdom, that’s over us all.

[1] “There was a puff—a muffled roar, and the tower was literally rent by an explosion. A moment later the flames burst out thro’ every rent and fissure, and the men, away up there, in mid air, fighting the fire, were cut off from the world below, by an outpour of smoke and flame, soon to become a mighty conflagration.”

[18]

Heliotrope.

There’s a charm in its fragrance bewitchingly sweet—

A something that binds with a magical spell;

E’en silence, thro’ this, to the heart can repeat

The message that’s sent in its purple fringed cell.

’Tis an odorous breath, from the heavenly heights—

An angel hand, beckoning to the bloom scented fields,

Where the soul in its freedom may taste the delights

That the garden of Paradise yields.

Like childhood’s sweet dreams of the holy and true,

That float thro’ Life’s dusk in the ether of Thought,

Or morn’s rosy blush, melting into the blue,

With tint of the beryl and amethyst caught.

[19]

’Tis an exquisite messenger, given the heart,

That winsomely speaks to the spirit, alone,

And whatever sentiment sent, will impart—

Will tell it so sweetly, in language its own.

When souls must needs pass thro’ Grief’s wordless abyss,

Then heart unto heart, through it, uttereth speech—

The sympathy, seeking expression through this,

Is told with a tenderness words never reach.

If you’ve aught that’s too sacred for words to express,

Too tender to breathe in a wish or a hope,

’Twill be fittingly draped in the delicate dress,

And borne in the perfume of Heliotrope.

[20]

Constancy.

The Fates have decreed thou canst never be mine,

Yet, constant, my soul turneth ever to thine

With love that outreaches Time’s cruel decree.

Too holy the passion with others to name—

Thoughts deepest and purest feed ever the flame,

That burns on the altar, kept sacred to thee.

As ocean in silence embosoms the light

That beams from the gems in the crown of the night,

Yet dimming its purity never,

So thou, in my bosom a presence shalt be,

As stars shining down in the depths of the sea—

Unsullied thy brightness forever.

Like a verdure-girt spring in the wide desert plains—

Like the stroke, bringing freedom, by the riving of chains,

[21]

Aye, Life’s every essence of pleasure

Had been love’s requital, that long ago morn;

Still ever I’ll count, (yet this rose has its thorn)

Having loved, though I lost, as a treasure.

* * * * *

Tho’ hopes were all blighted that haloed my youth,

And withered the flowers I deemed rooted in truth,—

Tho’ sunshine will brighten no morrow,

Yet never accusing’s deep bitterness stirs

The heart, that would only pour joy into her’s,

And the tenderest soothing for sorrow.

Her spirit dwelt ever in dreamy ideal,

While mine was so earthy and chained to the real,

With the heavens all brazen above me:—

All nature to hers echoed hymnings divine,

While doubts of a future, stirred ever in mine—

No marvel she never could love me.

But somehow, with Destiny’s mystical skein,

My love has entangled my infidel brain

And bound it with hope, to a heaven;

I dream of a sphere, we may find beyond this

Where—blessed fruition! life’s coveted bliss

To the purified soul will be given.

[22]

Estranged.

O, to be near to you!—Oh, to be dear to you!—

To feel in my heart, that your heart is my own.

All days have been dreary—my soul is aweary,

And still, must I walk in this dark way alone?

O, fond was my dreaming, when hope’s star was beaming,

When fancy’s bright web like a mantle of gold,

Lay over life’s losses—its trials and crosses,

And hid them, in splendors, of fold upon fold.

I thought then to follow (Oh, heartless and hollow!)

Where Fashion’s throng led, and to kneel where it knelt—

Thought Love’s nectared chalice was found in a palace—

In princely halls only, true happiness dwelt.

[23]

But Fashion’s vile brew, is of wormwood and rue—

It prays where the virtues are trampled and dead—

The bane we thought gladness, has led to this madness;

Dissipation came in, and the Peace-angel fled.

No wandering emotion e’er sullied devotion,

But anger’s hot lava my reason o’erran;

In the coolness of pride, (that love’s fervor belied)

The sorrows and pangs of estrangement began.

Be rashness forgiven, bring back to us heaven—

Our Eden-like home, with its love-lighted skies;

Tho’ parted forever, affection dies never—

’Tis knit into life with indissoluble ties.

The rills that have mingled, can never be singled—

They’ll flow on as one in their course to the sea;

By love, early plighted, our souls were united,

And ever—forever united must be.

[24]

Entwining each thought—with tenderness fraught—

Is loving, enduring remembrance of thee,

And, deep in your heart, in its holiest part,

I know there’s a hidden affection for me.

Shall life be all nighted—Love’s flame ne’er be lighted,

While I—by its altar with ashes o’er strewn—

Must ever remember thro’ constant December,

The balmy bright days and the roses of June?

O, desert, Sahara!—Oh, waters of Marah!

I tread the hot sands—press the fount with my lips—

In sorrow, go roaming, thro’ the shadowy gloaming

That falls, o’er a life, with love’s sun in eclipse.

[25]

My Inkstand.

This new one is thought both convenient and nice—

The atmosphere forcing the ink to the brim;

I question the worth of this modern device,

For seldom great thoughts on the surface will swim,

But something like whales, when they find themselves sought,

Down, swiftly from sight, in the depths they will sink—

At the bottom, the angled for ideas are caught,

And only by multiplied thrusts in the ink.

1855.

[26]

History of One Life.

Its morning dawned thro’ penury’s narrow pane—

A noon of wealth, with glory’s laurel crown—

Human weakness—one mistake—a felon’s stain—

The evening gloomed with all his fellow’s frown.

[27]

Evening.

Vermillion and gold

In beauty unfold

On the light, floating clouds of the West;

The low, crooning sound

Of all Nature around

Is lulling the world into rest.

Like a rover of Sin

The zephyr steals in

’Mong roses and carnations rare—

In ecstatic bliss

Gives each one a kiss,

Then scatters their sweets on the air.

In the shadowy hush

The linnet and thrush

Have gone to their nests in the grove;

The blue pimpernell

To the lilly’s wee bell

Is whispering his story of love.

[28]

Blest hour of delight

That verges the night,

What beauties and glories are thine,

When the great car of day

With its din rolls away,

And silence seems Presence divine.

Now the sparkle of dew

And the rich violet hue

Of the fast purpling clouds of the West,

Hint of time’s rapid flight

And of life’s coming night

That shall lull into heavenly rest.

[29]

Rondeaux.

A brilliant thought leaps out and glows,

Or scatters fragrance like the rose,

Nor needs an artizan’s design

To plan and shape to make it shine,—

Not all is brilliance in rondeaux.

The labored effort plainly shows

The mind has passed thro’ mighty throes

To give the world, with stamp divine,

A brilliant thought.

The music wins which sweetly flows,

Not that which falls like stunning blows,

And ease and grace, with sense combine,

To clothe with elegance the line,

Where Genius gives, in verse or prose,

A brilliant thought.

[30]

Solace of the Flowers.

Oft a deep, unspoken anguish

In the secret soul is stirred,

And the wounded heart, though yearning

For a kindly, loving word,

Opens not its sacred portal,

For the arts of friendly healing—

Only God is told the sorrow,

Through a mute-lipped, sad appealing.

“I am with you”—seems responded,

From the hush of Nature’s bowers,

And the spirit feels God nearer

Where He’s strewn the earth with flowers;

Nature’s language, rich with blessing,

For its unobtrusive words,

Speaks through softly murm’ring streamlets,

And the low, sweet trill of birds.

E’en a tiny, bruised allyssum,

Or a trampled mignonette,

Teach the heart, by sweet example,

That ’tis better to forget.

[31]

Like the touch of seraph pinions,

Or a faintly whispered hope,

Is the charm of perfume floating

From a hidden heliotrope.

Ah! there’s soothing for the spirit

Where the humid coolness lingers,

Where the breezes touch us gently

With their dainty, fairy fingers,—

Where the woodland nymphs are gliding,

Noiseless, o’er the mosses bright,

Spreading Sylva’s vestal altar

With a cloth of violets white.

All these tiny, fragrant flowers

Speak to us in tender tone,

Gently winning us from sorrow

With a language all their own;

Little beauties, sent in blessing,—

In our pathway angels strew them,

That we hear, when joy is shrouded,

Loving voices whisper through them.

[32]

Regret.

“—if only it never had been

All the world had been brighter and then—”

Will a hope never throb, but it comes back a sob,

From the echoing halls of the soul?

Do the joy-bells stirred, by a low thrilling word,

Forever resound with a funeral toll?

Will the roses we grasp, like the bite of an asp,

Give back to our sense but the stinging of pain?

Can there float a perfume, from the lillies’ white bloom,

That blends with enchantment Tofana’s slow bane?

Where but flowers were sown, has a thistle seed blown,

To root in their soil, a vile bramble to grow?

Doth each lovliest vine, ’round a hyssop entwine?

And out from sweet fountains must bitterness flow?

[33]

Does there lurk in each joy, a vile fiend to destroy

All the pleasure and blessing it brought,

With the stings of regret, as with thorns thickly set,

That will pierce, as it turns, every retrospect thought?

Ay, there’s never a spot, where this demon is not;

Like a serpent he creeps in this Eden of ours,

Where its pleasures are purest, its treasures securest,

And blights with his poison its loveliest flowers.

But we’ll act for the right, as God gives us the light,

Nor complain that the end from our vision is veiled;

’Twas in blessing and love, that the Father above,

Secured us from loss that prevision entailed.

In mercy, dear Father, still veil from our sight,

The dawn of a joy, or a grief’s brooding night,

[34]

That we faint not, expecting the gathering gloom,

Nor cease in the strife that ennobles the life,—

That we cloud not our joys with a shadowy tomb,

Nor a heart ever miss the delectable bliss,

Of a sweet, unexpected delight.

[35]

Hazel Bloom.

When paths that in summer were fringed with lush grass,

Are raspy with frost-whitened blades as you pass,

When the arbor’s denuded of clusters and leaves,

And the Ivy’s bare vines are entwining the eaves,

When the bright tinted sumach has changed to a brown

And the wind-shaken forest drops summer wealth down—

The autumn’s rich robings of crimson and gold

In the path of the years, to be trampled as mould—

When the beauty of purple-hued asters is shed,

And the glory of goldenrod faded and dead,

When the song-birds, we loved for their jubilant tune,

Have gone where they find a perennial June,

When clouds that were downy on the summer’s bright blue,

[36]

Have draped all the skies in a somberly hue,

When the orchard has yielded its riches of fruit,

And its life-feeding myst’ry is hid in the root—

The Aftermath gathered—the last sheaves of grain—

When Nature seems all in a funeral train,

Then Hazel buds burst thro’ their scales into bloom,

And glow like the stars that rob midnight of gloom.

When brooklets, unfettered, went leaping in glee,

O’er rocks and thro’ woodlands, adown to the sea—

When the bloom-time of Spring, in its glory, was here,

And earth all resounding with music and cheer,

When asphodels loaded with fragrance the air

And vied with the roses in loveliness rare,

Witch-Hazel, from Nature, seemed standing apart,

The wee, golden buds were asleep in its heart,

And sunshine and shower besought it, in vain,

To star, with its bloom, Flora’s garlanded fane.

[37]

Oh, marvel of beauty—bright blossoms of gold!

They show us the life leafless branches enfold.

’Tis the flower of hope with this lesson of cheer—

’Tis the season of rest, not “The death of the year,”

When, Nature, reposing in the bosom of God,

Feels the throb of His heart ’neath her snow-mantled sod—

At the soul of All-life with new life is imbued—

At the Fountain of Beauty, enriched and renewed.

* * * * *

Aye, symbol of Hope and the star gleam of Faith,

That give to Life’s autumn a glow—

A spirit revealed, while the seeming of Death

Lies palled in the brown leaves below.

A mission it has that was given of Him

Who gave it its blossoming time;

Thus blooming alone—desolation around,

Defying the glittering rime,

It speaks to the soul—’tis an oracle sweet,

His token, His promise and bond

That, tho’ passing thro’ change that leads down thro’ the tomb,

There’s a beautiful Springtime beyond.

[38]

Life’s Shuttle.

The Shuttle went flying

With sympathy sighing,

While it shot all the gold weft with threadings of woe.

There was murmured complaining,

The Shuttle arraigning—

That grief, with the joy, was unwound in the throw.

A whispered regretting:—

“No blessing forgetting,

God knoweth thy needs—it is His to bestow:—

From Love I’m receiving

The woof I am weaving.”

The Shuttle’s reproof was subduing and low,

And, blent with Time’s beating,

I heard it repeating

The lesson it taught in love’s tenderest flow.

Aye, softly it chanted this simple refrain—

“’Tis wisdom that mingles the sorrow and pain.

The sunlight, that gilds, with its glory the earth,

[39]

Would blight with its blaze, but for clouds and the rain,

And lives would be arid and smitten with dearth

If beamed on forever with joy and mirth—

In blessing I weave in the sorrow and pain.”

[40]

Springtime.

When meadows are strewn with the buttercup’s gold,

There’s gladness for childhood that song never told;

The laugh of a child, bubbling up from the heart,

Is linked with the spring, a most beautiful part.

A bevy of children—sweet far away dream!—

They trip o’er the sward, lit with dandelion gleam—

We’ll join in their sports with a heartiness true;

Our own vanished springtime, with them, we’ll renew.

The woods, (that are reached by a romp thro’ the lane

Where the grass is made velvet by sunshine and rain)

Have infinite beauty, in blossom outspread—

Delights for the gods in the fragrance they shed.

[41]

Come, drink in the perfume of blossoming trees—

Take lessons of patience from murmuring bees,

And listen to brooklets—they’ll sing you a song

As, wild in their glee, they go leaping along.

Come, watch the wild birds as they cheerily dart—

Their music, with sunshine, take into your heart—

Let the gladness of childhood thrill you, and be gay,

Thus keeping your soul in perpetual May.

When Nature is robing her forests anew,

And heaven spreads over her loveliest blue—

When earth is aglow with spring’s ravishing bloom,

Ingratitude only sits shrouded in gloom.

[42]

For Insomnia.

When Somnus is giddy and flies from my pillow,

And care’s elfin throngs come to vex me—

When mem’ry, perverse, all the sweet things forgetting,

Will mention but those that perplex me,

I ask that monotony’s rigid insistence

Shall drive out the gibberous crew;

They flee from his presence—will hie back to elfland,

Where their Night shade and astrofell grew—

Ask thought for a theme that’s subduing in power—

The sea, with its billows all hushed to a calm—

Not mantled with darkness, but lit with the sunset,

When Day, unto Evening, is chanting her psalm.

All life’s petty griefs in the grandeur evanish,

The spirit is freed from its thrall,

[43]

And unto the faint heart a trustfulnesss whispers,

“Be brave—there’s a God over all.”

* * * * *

In fancy I launch on the shimmering sea

That’s lighting with glory its waters for me;

Like a sprite of the ocean the boat seems to glide,

As lightly the oars dip the opaline tide,

Till out in expanses, afar from the shore,

Away from life’s din and tumultuous roar

Where, gently I’m rocked on the breast of the deep,

While symphonic waves woo the Lethe of Sleep.

A broad, shining pathway is westward unrolled—

I watch the bright wavelets, with tresses of gold,

Run out in wild play to the visual rim

Where the sky bends to kiss them in distance so dim,

Till thought is enchanted—anxiety flees,

And weariness slips into somnolent ease;

The silences seem to have rhythmical beat—

’Tis footfalls of wakefulness, now in retreat.

[44]

Forgetfulness softly creeps into the mind,

Suspecting no trace of resistance to find,

But wakefulness turns back, commands and forbids—

Yet, Slumber steals past her and touches the lids;

Then Morpheus bears me away in his arms

To his realm that’s swept of all fears and alarms

Where, lulled with his stupors, of poppy and rose,

I dreamily, dreamily sink to repose.

[45]

Mother.

When evening falls softly, with far away dreaming,

Oft steals o’er my spirit a rapturous seeming—

I feel the light touch of her hand as of old,

When bending above me with good night caresses,

She lovingly pushed back the long heavy tresses,

And smoothed out the tangles of gold.

Touch memory’s harp in the silence of even,

And loved ones will leave e’en the raptures of heaven,

And come to us then when the gates are ajar:

With mother’s face, ever most central and tender,

They light all the Past with a rosy-hued splendor

And the soul’s secret chamber’s unbar.

From hidden recesses they bring out its treasures—

Among them are shining youth’s dream-lighted pleasures,

[46]

When mother-love blent with, and hallowed them all;

The haunts that the years with their sunsets have gilded,

The castles of beauty that child-fancy builded,

All come in the gloaming at memory’s call.

’Twas down by the river, where bluebells were sweetest

And swift-footed hours forever ran fleetest,

Enthralled by the charm, that I loved most to roam—

To watch where the sunshine and ripple wove wimples,

Like smiles, on a rosy face, dancing with dimples,

Forgetful of duty till mother called home.

Right-angled with the river-bank’s water-worn ledges

The forest and farm knit their raveled-out edges,

In a brambled rail-fence. From the pasture’s green field,

Thro’ the edge of the woodland, a path, fringed with mosses

And bushy green tangles with clematis flosses,

Half the charms of the deep wood revealed.

[47]

When sunset was tinting each shadowy hollow

’Twas gladness, the kine, from the pasture, to follow

And dream, as I wandered, of fairy and gnome—

To loiter ’mong ferns, with great trees spreading over,

And breathe the perfume of wild roses and clover

Enrapt, until mother called home.

I’m lingering now on the banks of the River—

The sunset of Time on its ripples a-quiver—

How peaceful the flowing—no turmoil or foam—

A luminous mist o’er the landscape is falling—

The evening has come, I hear a voice calling,—

’Tis mother’s voice calling me home.

[48]

Eoline’s Dream.

One long day of toil was ending,

And my head was hot with pain

When a thought, akin to envy,

Racing thro’ my throbbing brain,

Muttered to my fevered fancy

“Only wealth has power to please—

Rocking in the lap of riches

Life were fair as summer seas.”

Wealth for me would bridge the ocean,

Open Europe’s storied lore,

Rome and Greece, with art and beauty,

Each would open wide her door;

These my hungering soul had longed for—

Oft they seemed within my clasp,

But like gold beneath the rainbow

They escaped my eager grasp.

How I spurned the homely hangings

That in poverty were wrought,

E’en the couch, whose dingy plushings

Now in weariness I sought.

[49]

“Common things,” I said, repining,

“Ne’er for me can blessing hold”;

But the Sun, just then declining,

Flooded all with molten gold.

And a benison, descending

On the wings of closing day,

Soothed and hushed my wild complaining—

Drove the evil sprite away—

Brought before me my possessions,

Richest in the long array,

Wealth of home, where all my dear ones

Make it bright with love, alway.

Lightly drooped the shining fringes

Of the evening’s twilight hour,

While the playful, roving zephyr

Gently kissed each folding flower;

Softly gliding into dreamland

On the sunset’s gilded car,

Soon for me, his golden splendor

Wrapped all objects, near and far.

In his grand effulgent shimmer

“Common things,” grew strangely bright;

And my home became a palace

All resplendent in the light;

[50]

E’en the russet garb of labor,

If unstained by deed of shame,

There outshone imperial purple,

With its throne and titled name.

Sweeter than the grand exotics,

Were my lillies, pure and white—

All was beauty—all about me

Whispered to me—“Life is bright,”

And its sweetest flowers are blooming

In the toil-worn paths of earth,

And its purest gems will sparkle

On the brow of honest worth.

Diamonds, oft, are but the tear-drops

Avarice wrings from orphaned trust,

And his gorgeous, gilded trappings

Steal their hues from hearts he’s crushed.

More I saw in raptured dreaming—

Seraphs holding crowns of gold,

Beckoning up the shining pathway

Where the gates of Rest unfold.

Some whose wealth did bow them earthward

Sought for this to enter in,

Others, wearing robes of priesthood,

Thought that these absolved from sin;

[51]

But no easier passed the portal,

Those in purple, cowl, or gown;—

He who bore life’s burden’s bravely,

Won the race and wore the crown.

* * * * *

Then a touch of dimpled fingers

Woke my heart with mother-joy—

Golden head upon my bosom—

Tired, sleepy, baby boy

Poured a wealth of love and kisses

On the lips that had complained.

He (sweet angel!—God had sent him)

Quick the demon, Envy, chained.

[52]

Our Own.

Not all we name as friends, the soul receives as such,

Nor ever those whose lip-born love weaves smoothest claim;

Those only who, to ours, give genial spirit touch

Can light that hidden shrine with friendship’s holy flame.

’Tis by this sign the friends God made for us are known;

Dear ones! We count their names as precious gems which lie

Within the hearts most sacred place—its very own—

A circlet bright that’s bound by sympathy’s silken tie.

There’s still another bond for which no word is found—

A gift of His, so high the minds extremest reach

[53]

Doth fail to find it name, or ontologic bound,

Tho’ undefined—beyond the subtlest grasp of speech,

This wondrous, unseen realm, to spirit sense, remains,

And o’er its lines the soul, to kindred soul, conveys

Joy’s glad, exultant flash, or sorrow’s woeful pains,

Which, thro’ this gift divine, love’s tenderness allays.

* * * * *

’Tis sweet in twilight’s hush, when noisy day has fled

And evening’s azure glows with beauty’s single star—

When roses, gemmed with dew, their richest fragrance shed,

To feel the silence thrill with signals from afar

Feel the thought-lines warmly pulsing with a message from our own—

To know the call of dear ones, as we know the breath of flowers,

And catch love’s fond impulsion, thro’ this mystic Psychephone,

Trembling on the stillness of the dreamy, evening hours.

[54]

Thro’ distance, o’er these subtile, sentient threads of mind,

We feel, by finest sense, our answering heart-beats throb

Till every fluttering, white-winged joy doth find

Response, and every grief a sympathetic sob.

O, blessed bond! It links us to the Life Divine!

Thro’ this our prayers may reach the holy Fount of Love—

The league of kinship which these spirit cords entwine,

By fervent sway of soul, is felt in realms above.

[55]

Wounded Faith.

Mine open enemy hath no power to wound—

His poison shafts fall hurtless to the ground;

He may wreak a treach’rous lynx-like deed

And yet will never cause my heart to bleed.

If he should glare on me in hottest hate,

With tiger fierceness, plan the direst fate,

With claws distended, lusting for the roon,

I’d smile and do him kindness over soon,

Or, give a sure nepenthe for his wrath

By silent, strewing favors in his path.

But when those to whom my heart is bound in trust,

With aim concealed, make unexpected thrust,—

When those I’d counted friends, as friends had served,

Whose joy and weal my strongest effort nerved—

If they shall stab and gaze with hungry eyes

To catch my wince of pain, ’neath friendship’s guise,

[56]

Then, a wound is made, that all the quivering senses feel—

A wound, that only trusted friends could deal;

And, saddest hurt of all, the heart will find,

The same stab struck its faith in human kind.

[57]

“Destiny.”

She freighted a thistle-down once with a wish,

And gave to the breeze with her breath;

The Fates were to hold its invisible leash

And, if to be granted ere death,

Bring back, at her will, to her out-reaching hand

This wealth-laden embassy sent.

Unheeding her will and its pleading command,

Up, up toward the zenith it went,

Till will, it would seem, at the last had controlled,

When, earthward it came, like a fairy rigged sail—

Came straight toward the hand that was eager to hold

The zephyr-tossed feather, whose course should unveil

What Destiny held, in the Future concealed—

Life’s weightiest questions decide.

Almost within grasp and it wavered and reeled,

Then, mounting again the etherial tide,

[58]

It floated—was lost in the depths of the blue.

That thistle down, swayed by a pulse of the air,

Had wrecked her heart’s hopes on the rocks of despair,

As billows of ocean rich argosies strew.

Now listless and faithless she sits on the shore

Where Time’s restless surge casts its wrack at her feet;

She sees not the sunshine—hears only the roar

Of dark, sullen waves as they ceaselessly beat.

In Fate-ridden weakness she shrinks from all strife—

Lets Destiny’s elves to her fancy repeat

The early “decrees” that have shadowed her life—

No effort essays that might wreak a defeat—

Just waits for the stroke of pale Atropos’ knife.

* * * * *

A faith in the hidden controllings of Fate,

Enchains, with its might, even Reason and Will:

In wreakless inaction her devotees wait

For the slow-turning grind of her mill—Let

[59]

circumstance bind them with torturing gyves,

Pass doors that would open to Industry’s keys

And when, with his braided pangs, Poverty drives,

Receive all his lashings as “Fortune’s decrees.”

E’en tho’ Opportunity’s latch-string is out,

They, shelterless, wait for events to compel,

And deem themselves goaded by Destiny’s knout

While held in the toils of her mystical spell.

Credulity, Sloth and their following throngs

Forever are weaving entangling snares—

’Tis not till a victim is bound with their thongs,

To thwart his endeavor that Destiny dares.

Bring Will to the front—strike Destiny down,

And throttle the Fate that would hinder success—

You’ll find that dame Fortune will put off her frown

And yield, for past sufferings, an ampleredress.

[60]

Unclaimed.

Just beyond the reach of thought,

Just beyond the grasp of mind

Is a sense of Presence—fraught

With blessing—felt, yet undefined.

At times it seems a wondrous power—

A strength, awaiting Faith’s command—

For trusting soul, a proffered dower,

That’s held by Love’s omniscient hand.

Is it the gift, reserved of God

For those whom Faith brings nearest Him?—

The power that smote the rock?—the rod

That rives the fountain’s brim,

That all His thirsty souls may drink?

“O, ye of little faith,” He cries—

So many faithless Peters sink,

And the proffered power dies.

[61]

Death.

When thou, O Death, art come to be the old man’s guest

Who, bowed beneath the heavy weight of toil and years,

So longeth for thy rest,

Or to the weary mother, looking through her tears,

To the bright celestial shore

Where her loved have gone before,

Then, truly, thou art blest.

To them the ties that bound are broken, all,

And they will stretch glad hands of welcome unto thee

Who comes to break their thrall—

To slip the leash of weary life and set them free;

They, impatient, wait release

To pass the golden gates of Peace

And gladly list thy call.

[62]

But, in Love’s young home, where Life is one bright, pulsing sea

Of joy and hope, thy summons hath heart-breaking sound,

Like cruel Fate’s decree;

As tho’ alone, by stealth, she had thy gyves unbound,

When thou hadst to this Eden crept

And wrought, while guardian angels slept,

What Envy’s dream might be.

We feel the surging depth of Sorrow’s stifled cry,

Yet in thy presence, helpless, dumb with grief, we stand

And silent question—Why?—

Why budding life is frozen by thine icy hand,

Why yielded to thy devastating claim

Are all the loveliest of earth,—

E’en God’s sweetest, dearest gift of birth—

A mother-love,

Which is for life’s most holy joys, the precious name.

While cloud-depths veil in gloom the steely form of truth,

The heart, athrob with grief, still questions why:—

[63]

Ah, why Love’s brightly burning flame

Is ever smothered by thy breath,—

Its altar, dark and cold, whereon dead ashes lie;—

Oh! why are love, and hope, and youth,

All left within thy grasp, O, Death?

[64]

Night-Blooming Cereus.

Birth of darkness! bloom of night!

Bringing me such rare delight;

Floating charm, thy rich perfume

Stirs the lagging, weary brain,

Hushes all the thoughts of gloom,

Soothes or dulls the pangs of pain.

This floral wonder, glistening white,

Scorning Day’s broad, glaring light,

In the sacred stillness now

Beams in beauty on my sight,

As the star on evening’s brow

Beams upon a moonless night.

Like a rainbow on the skies,

Looked for, yet a glad surprise—

Like a meteor’s flash and gleam

Crossing midnight’s sullen gloom,

Like the fairy forms of dream

Is this wondrous, starry bloom.

Tell me lovely, mystic flower,

Why you gem this gruesome hour?

[65]

Were the jasper gates ajar?

Did the Night, from angel’s crown,

Pluck for us its brightest star,

And cast the gleaming jewel down?

O, thou, pearly, radiant flower!

Why give Night such wealth of dower?

Why with anthers, dipped in gold,

’Round a carpel, rosy red,

Wait in darkness to unfold,

And thy queenly beauty spread?

Now a sentient presence seeming—

Ah! it whispers, or I’m dreaming:

“An evangel I’m to thee,

With this message from the Past;

How e’er full life’s joys may be,

Like my bloom they may not last.

Throngs are gone—the voices stilled

That once these halls with gladness filled;

Here, with thee, I stand alone

Where, before Night’s ebon throne,

Silence holy, waits to bear

From thy heart its inmost cry,

Wrought into such fervent prayer

As doth bring God’s presence nigh.”

[66]

My Muse.

She wanders on, at her sweet will,

Thro’ gloomy vales or paths of pleasure,

Nor asks the world if grave, or gay,

Shall be her theme and measure.

She scorns the stilty, stiff Rondeau

That artizans must fashion,

But loves the brooklets romping flow

And Nature’s gush of passion.

Tho’ common use has smoothly worn

The Sonnet’s polished fetter,

She wonders how its chains are borne

When freedom’s range is better.

The triolet she never tries—

She’d lose in such endeavor

The glory of the sunset skies,

The music of the river.

My muse is not a Hellenese

With bright, Olympian halo,

But that strong, helpful one, that feels

The heart-throbs of her fellow.

[67]

She lifts me from the slough, Despond—

Bids Nature hush my sighing

By crooning for me sweetest song,

While in her bosom lying.

The violets, the Spring first kissed,

To us, are sweet as heather—

We climb the hills, thro’ shining mist,

In Autumn’s golden weather.

When, Lotus-drugged, Ambition sleeps,

She whispers—“Come up higher”—

Thro’ starry fields of azure deeps

I’m led and feasted by her.

She breaks the locks which golden keys

Could only open to me,

And kindly joins her gift, with Art’s,

Earth’s grandest views to show me.

While those who sing for fame and crown

Must bide the Poet’s tether,

Dear Muse and I will wander down

Thro’ Freedom’s vale, together.

’Tis sweet to us, the path we tread—

All Nature’s song is ours,

Her wildest scenes, the stars o’erhead

And all her fragrant flowers.

[68]

We Never Know.

Ah, me! we never know

What cold, wild winds may blow

Across the springtime’s balmy promise, sweet—

By what untimely frost

The fruit germs may be lost,

And rosy petals beaten down with sleet.

The eyes that glow tonight

With childhood’s loving light,

To-morrow may, with pallid lids be veiled—

The bounding pulse be stilled,

Life’s crimson current chilled,

And rich, red lips with Death’s cold kisses paled.

We never know the fate

So near, until too late;

Tho’ oft the black-winged demon’s shadow falls

In heavy gloom upon the heart—

A thousand dreads upstart,

Yet onward, all, until the shock appalls.

[69]

Warm love anticipates,

With open arms awaits,

’Till hissing wires the stunning message brings.

Oh, God! the wild despair

That hushes e’en the voice of prayer,

And makes the soul forget all offerings.

Such sudden, crushing grief!

Hope, rising, scouts belief,

But falls down, prone, before the sorrow-flashing wires.

Hear Sympathy’s whispered tone,

Oh, ye, who sit alone,

With but the light of memory’s altar fires.

[70]

A June in Childhood.

I stood in the flush of an evening in June

When leafage and blossom and fragrance triune,

Crown this, of the months, the most queenly and fair;

The clover and roses had poured on the air

A nectar I drank with enjoyment rare;

Baptized in this flood of ecstatic delight

My child eyes were blessed with miraculous sight.

O, gladly I’d yield up the wisdom of years,

If gazing out now, thro’ the mist of my tears,

I could think as I tho’t in that beautiful dream,

That the gates were ajar, and the shimmer and gleam

Of golden-paved streets on that silvery stream,

“The River of Life”—shining thro’ in the west,

Gave us a bright glimpse of the home of the blest.

[71]

I saw, as I gazed with my dream-lighted eyes,

A broad, gilded stairway let down from the skies,

And angels came out with their robings of white,

All ’broidered and shining with flosses of light,

And bound on each brow with a coronet bright,

Was a veil of soft gossamer, fold upon fold,

With amethyst border, and flutings of gold.

And spread on the sky, to my glorified view,

Was a foam crested ocean, pavillioned with blue;

Bright islands of azure thro’ cloud-rifts were seen,

Then sunk, like Atlantis, in billowy sheen:

While ships, that I fancied from shores evergreen,

Afloat on its bosom, at anchor would ride,

Or cut with their prows thro’ the rose-tinted tide.

Some angels sailed far, where the cloud-waves grew dark,

In boats that were graceful as gondolier’s barque,

[72]

And those I tho’t sailing far over the seas

To watch over missions and little Burmese;

Then others swept down, where the glory-crowned trees

Hid them on the stairs, but I knew from that band

Some went to each household, all over the land,

Where children would whisper “I lay me to sleep,

Send angels dear Father, my spirit to keep

Thro’ midnight and darkness, to guard me from harm,

To give me sweet dreams, and to shield from alarm—

To watch me till morning dawns, rosy and warm,

Or, dying before, let them bear me above

To the bosom of Jesus, on pinions of love.”

* * * * *

These memories float in on the fragrance to night,

While sunset is veiling in glory the light,

And seasons, repeating in cyclical rune,

Bring forward in beauty, rose-garlanded June;

[73]

All earth seems an altar with flowers o’erstrewn—

’Tis Nature’s thank offering—my heart is in tune

With her grand De Profundis, now rolling in praise;

Send angels, dear Father, a grown-up child prays,

And a rose-wreathed June for my sunset of days.

[74]

Goldenrod.

O, Goldenrod, bright goldenrod!

It fringes all the wayside hedges,

And makes the forest mantle rich

With lovely tasseled edges.

It lights with sunshine of its own

Each dark, neglected dingle,

And links itself with memories of

The cheery, old-time ingle.

Despite the summer’s burning drought,

It blooms profuse and bright as ever,

And where spring fountains rippled forth

With laughter to the river,

It kisses now their parching lips

To woo their music mellow,

And wreaths our dying flowers with

An aureole of yellow.

It gaily lifts its nodding plumes

Above decay’s inceptive traces,

And hides beneath its cloth-of-gold

The season’s fading graces.

Bright goldenrod! ’tis autumn’s crown

And summer’s sunset glory—

Each blooming-time is new with joy

As Love’s old charming story.

[75]

An Evening in June.

Glory won ’gainst beauty’s brush in painting sunset skies,

But paling now, upon the hills in rosy languor lies:

All breathing life, with her, seems panting for a cooling breeze,

For winds have stopped ’mid ocean isles, to toss the gleaming spray

And spicy odors rich, along the golden path of day;

And motionless, awaiting Beauty’s Star, stand all the trees,

While Erse, from her stores, besprinkles earth with gems,

From mantling robes of green, to flower-broidered hems.

But mortals, restless aye, will burden all life’s golden hours

With low complainings, forgetting bounty’s blessing showers,

[76]

Impatient, beg the one withheld for other days and needs,

Nor see the plan inwoven, that the world’s wide hunger feeds;

Nor ken the flashes on the sultry air, above the plain,

Are the wings of ripening angels, sweeping o’er the grain.

[77]

Yosemite.

With humbled heart, subdued and awed I look on thee,

Thou time-defying granite pile; with senses rapt

Behold thee, grand and world-renowned—Yosemite—

Thy spray-enwreathing stream—

Thy rock-walled vale and sunset clouds, all glory capped

With evanescent gleam.

Aye, gaze and wondering gaze, until the centuries swing

Their massive doors ajar, and glimpses give when Earth was young;

But farthest grasp of human thought but weakling reasons bring

To solve thy problem vast;

In vain the Present asks the voiceless silences that hung

Their mysteries o’er the Past—

[78]

The far, dim Past, that wrapped our sphere in shoreless sea—

The mantling gloom, that swathed its infancy in mist,

While yet our central orb did wait Omnipotent decree

To bless the world with Light—

Ere Day’s first, smiling morn with rosy beams had kissed

Away the brooding night.

What engine wrought in Nature’s great completing plan

To ope for thee thy chasm’s broad, abysmal deeps?

Was it the glacier’s ponderous plow, that smoothed for man

The verdant, fertile plain,

Or, rolling waters that thro’ circling eons, wore thy steeps

With solemn, sad refrain?—

Or from Earth’s central fires, did fierce, volcanic throes

Expel, in molten mass, the elemental rock,

That o’er the wilds to mountain majesty arose,

And while yet warm with throbbing strain,

Did earthquake rend with pole-disturbing shock,

Thy mighty walls amain?

[79]

O, puny mind! be still and catch the chant sublime,

Of Nature’s psalm, that here is poured in never ending praise;

Accept the truth that God, by His right hand, did raise

These templed rocks, to stand thro’ an eternity of time,

An altar place of worship, where

All nations come, and every heart an offering lays

Of mingled praise and prayer.

[80]

Blight, or Blessing.

“But saddest is the tho’t of joys

That never yet were tasted.”—John Hay.

And yet the heart will never turn,

Tho’ all its wealth beside were wasted—

’Twill never cease to plead and yearn

For joys it covets, yet untasted:

And at its secret altar kneeling,

Whereon the life an offering lies,

The soul will lift its one appealing

For joy that Wisdom still denies.

It watches for the longed-for beaming

With hidden, cherished, fond delight,

As tho’ the hoping, wishing, dreaming

Could make the shadowed pathway bright;

As tho’ from out some shining mist,

By radiant bow of promise kissed,

That joy might come, to bless it yet

And soothe the pain of long regret.

Tho’ at our feet fall blessing showers,

All worthless in our grasp they seem,

De-gloried, as are withered flowers,

If still denied the soul’s fond dream.

[81]

For lack of it—that single joy,—

The life is robbed of sweet employ;

Each cup seems blent with Upas drips,

Each day seems gloomed with cold eclipse.

Sweet sleep will sometimes give the boon,—

Possession’s own supreme delight,—

Oh, sad that Day dissolves so soon

The bright, warm vision—gift of Night!

Brief joy! The rapturous dream diffused,

Swims round the soul like golden mist,

And life a moment seems suffused

With dawn’s own rose and amethyst.

And shall it be,—this sorest need—

To us, eternal, haunting loss?

Or will this spirit-hunger lead

Up, from this life-enduring cross,

With sentience large, evolved by this,

(When change the mortal veil shall rift,)

To take our own supremest bliss

From God’s infinitudes of gift?

[82]

O, For a Rainy Day.

By Request.

These days are hot, and dry, and dreary;

The burning sun seems never weary

The vine lies limp on the thirsty earth—

The grass grows sere in the long, long dearth—

The days are dusty, hot and dreary.

The sky is cloudless, brassy, dreary,

The wind seems ever languid, weary

But hope still clings to the gifts of the Past—

We trust that the rain will come at last

And the days be damp and cheery.

O, clouds sweep o’er, veil the sun’s hot shining!

With copious rains, come, hush all repining,

Swell the shrunken grains of the sun-burnt lands,

With new, green grass clothe the arid sands,

Then the days will be bright and cheery.

August, 1895.

[83]

The Great Poet.

Upon Parnassian heights he walked and gazed below;—

From wing of Jove’s high soaring bird he plucked his pen;

Attuned to poet soul, his lofty numbers flow—

His stately verse ne’er stoops to common needs of men.

The earth-born, toiling throng, he saw, but from afar;

No interlinking brotherhood bound him to them;

For them no warmth his glory shed—a cold, bright star,

On which they gazed as on a costly, dazzling gem.

To those who nearest reach his altitude of thought

He bends himself to speak, but yet, with lofty mien;

[84]

Of these, but few, familiar comradship, have sought;

They stand, his far, dim height and earth’s green vales, between,

To take his gift, which often falls like vivid lightning flashes,

And crystalize, and link for comprehension’s reach—

They trace his subtle thread, entangled with the shining meshes

Of universal lore, and weave in wefts of wondrous speech.

Sometimes, it seems, an idea vast, his measure strains,

When he doth crush the whole, as quartz is crushed for gold,

And then, reject and cleanse, until there’s naught remains

Of quartz or dross. The massive idea we behold

Upon his page, aglow in shining, golden grains.

Then alchemistic souls, in study’s crucial heat,

Must fuse and integrate—must clothe, and warm,

[85]

And breathe into it soul, when lo, with life replete,

The world will praise for breadth and depth, embracing form.

* * * * *

In this bright world of ours God placed some humble ones

With loving hearts, o’erwelling with sweet tenderness;

They soothe the wounds of war, they cheer earth’s toiling sons

And where grief broods these faithful ones are there to bless;

And e’en when fiends come forth with pestilential breath

To pour their reeking poisons on the stagnant air,

Forgetting self, they wrestle long with Death,

And, with devotion’s strength, the black-winged demon, dare.

Tho’ humble these, their elder Brother sits enthroned

At God’s right hand; His golden words, impressive, deep,

[86]

Still speak to us in sweet monition, gentle toned,

“If ye love me feed my lambs,—aye feed my sheep.”

O, many sheep have need of thee. Go feed them “In His Name,”

Or seek that shelterless, that lone one that has strayed,

Nor deem thy labor lost because, unknown to fame,

For whoso lifts the cup, by which there’s one soul’s thirst allayed,

The same shall eat of hidden manna. He is blest of God.

Tho’, but faintly we can echo the loving Shepherd’s call,

We’ll find in Duty’s obscure ways, His sweetest blessings fall—

In these same, lowly paths, earth’s sainted ones have trod.

It may be grand to tread Olympian heights and breathe

Ambrosial airs,—to win high praise ’mong those whose souls

[87]

Are lit with Heaven’s fire; but sweeter far to wreathe

A simple worded song, whose swelling music rolls

A tidal wave of feeling, thrilling into life

A long chained serfdom. Greater mastery of the art

Is his, who lifts to light, from savagery and strife,

Earth’s darkened isles—whose pen can touch the world’s great heart

With philanthropic fire,—whose verse has, throbbing thro’ the whole,

In sympathy with man, a loving, human soul.

[88]

Love’s Riches.

Rich blessings are scattered around us—

Why heedlessly trample them down

And ask for the millionaire’s coffers,

Or sigh for a kingdom and crown?

We’ve ever the sunshine of loving,

Unmixed with the drosses of gold—

Its pleasures are not in wealth’s giving

Or e’en in its power to withhold.

The jewels, whose splendors we covet,

Gain much of their sparkle and glow

From the flutter and tumult of bosoms

Where heart-aches are throbbing below;

In palaces, often, is hidden

A skeleton presence of dread,

That quenches the flame on Love’s altar

While hope in the darkness lies dead.

A queen may be rich in dominions,

Have crown and a scepter and throne,

Yet all of the riches of loving

To her be forever unknown;

Far greater the kingdom for woman

Where love is the power—her throne

In a heart of unswerving devotion,

Its measureless realms her own.

[89]

Thro’ the tapestried halls of the mansion

The ghost of dead honor may glide—

A sense of life’s holiest joys departed

In the lordliest castle abide.

Tho’ the chalice wealth drains should be golden,

No sweeter to him is the draught

Than the cup with the sparkle of water,

That humble contentment has quaffed.

Earth’s mines, and her jewel-strewn caverns,

With the station that title confers,

All poured at her feet, would not purchase

The treasure a mother counts hers.

Ay, hid in your home you will find them—

Love’s riches—vast treasures untold;

More precious than worldly possessions,

Though counted, by millions, in gold.

* * * * *

Then let not the demon of envy

E’er enter the soul to enthrall;

The Father is tenderly watching—

Is keeping a record of all.

Rewards we have missed in our earth-life

We’ll find in that mansion above,

All decked with the beauties of Heaven

And lighted with Infinite Love.

[90]

Complainings.

Never a dove came to nestle by me,

But green-eyed Envy was there to see—

Soiling its plumage of spotless white,

Making it vile as a raven of night.

Never a rose in my garden was born,

But was surrounded by many a thorn.

Never a sweet but was mingled with gall—

And freedom, forever, is shadowed by thrall;—

Fruit, that looked luscious while hanging in view,

Is blighted ere ripe, by a blistering dew;

Gold, that we gather and count as a joy,

Has little of pleasure and much of alloy;

Jealously burns, in her caustical fire,

My tenderest hope, with malevolent ire—

Ashes, of all, she has strewn in my path,

And mocks at my pain with demoniac laugh.

But hush thy complaining, my heart, and be still—

If Heaven, our measure, with blessings should fill,

[91]

How soon would the soul with satiety cloy,

And life would be robbed of delightsome employ,—

Incentive would sleep, and all motive would die,

If needs of our nature should utter no cry;

But lacking the goal our ambition would gain

Arouses our powers—gives strength to attain.

Our grandest achievements have birth in the throes

Of Penury’s labor; and multiplied woes

But nerve us to action—resist and endure,

And highest endeavor gives aid to secure

Success to the valiant in the struggle for right—

Though failure may sometimes descend like a blight—

Oft failure is blessing, that’s sent in disguise

To turn us from groveling to gaze on the skies.

Then learn through each trial, my soul, to rejoice,

And e’en from the cloud will Compassion’s own voice

Be heard thro’ the gloom, in response to your cry,

“Fear not the tempest, my child, it is I.”

[92]

Questionings.

When the pallid lids have fallen

O’er the eyes in dreamless sleep—

Eyes that wake no more with watching

Nor in loneliness will weep,

Will a touch of pity soften—

Warm that unimpassioned gaze?

For a moment will affection

Hallow all their clouded days?

When the heart, no longer beating,

All its painful throbbings o’er—

When it stirs life’s crimson current

With its hopes and fears no more,

Will another heart feel sorrow

For the stillness resting there?

Will it for a whole tomorrow

Wear a saddened shade of care?

When the weary hands are folded

For that long unbroken rest,

And the spirit wings in freedom

To its home among the blest,

[93]

Will one tender feeling waken

In that heart a fond regret,

That will last thro’ summer’s blooming—

That will never quite forget?

When the lips are cold and silent—

Hushed for aye their gentle speech,

With love’s whispers dying on them,

Will their mute appealing reach

To the rock-girt fount of feeling?

Will Remorse with stinging rod,

Smite and bring the welling tear-drops

To bedew the new-laid sod?

[94]

Persecuted.

Alone, alone I tread the shore

Where surges beat forevermore

With deaf’ning, hollow wail;

The sky, o’ercast with angry frown,

Doth drop the loaded clouds, low down,

To beat me with their hail.

And, helpless here upon the strand

With no out-reaching friendly hand,

I face the roaring sea.

With reverent love my soul is stirred,

And seeking truth within Thy word

I come, dear Lord, to Thee.

Aye, take my hand in thine Oh, God!

And lead me, where Thine own have trod,

By waters, pure and sweet.

O, send thy Comforter to calm

The aching heart with holy balm,

And keep me at thy feet!

Nature’s gift had been more kind

If a pulpy, plastic mind,

To fit, with ease, their mold;

[95]

Then self-assumed, “straight orthodox”

Had gathered me, with petted flocks,

Within the church’s fold.

O, loving Christ! Am I not thine?

And Thy disciples, truly mine,

Each my sister or my brother,

By the heritage of heaven—

By the new commandment given,

That we all love one another?

O, help me Lord with thee to pray!—

“Forgive them Father,” Thou didst say,

“They know not what they do.”

May sheltering love, dear Lord, be mine—

O, keep my life thine, only thine,

My soul to conscience true!

[96]

O, Kindly Speak.

The chiding word that chills the flow

Of warm child-feeling, ere it gush

In sparkling jets, to catch the glow

And tinge of Life’s bright morning flush,

Is the human thunder-bolt—its path

Is marked by dwarfed and shrunken minds,

Souls scarred, as trees by lightning scath,

Which show, like them, the spoiler’s lines.

[97]

He Is Risen.

Crown of all our joys supernal

Is the hope of life eternal;

Burst in bloom ye lillies white!

Wreathe the altar and the cross,—

Dawn is born of brooding night,

Heaven’s joy of earthly loss,—

He is Risen!

In the starry fields of Heaven

Mansions bright, to us, are given:

Triumph o’er the grave He won

In the resurrection morn—

Life eternal is begun,

Hope to all the world is born,

He is Risen!

He hath passed thro’ Heaven’s portal,

We, thro’ Him have life immortal—

Death is met with faith and trust—

The tomb is lighted by His love;

Earth may claim the crumbling dust—

Souls will dwell with Christ above.

He is Risen!

[98]

Think not thou art left forsaken

Tho’ by sorrow’s tempest shaken;

From His son, God veiled his face—

Heaven’s light was e’en withdrawn,

But the cruel cross made place

For the glorious Easter dawn—

He is Risen!

[99]

The Christ.

In olive-crowned Gethsemane,

Alone the Savior sought the power

That wrought through him at Galilee,

To stay the tide of that dark hour.

With grief bowed soul he prayed, but grace

Was His, to say: “Thy will be done.”

From Christ the Father veiled his face

And gave the world His only Son.

Tho’ His displeasure hid the day,

Spread brooding terror o’er the land,

Tho’ yielding hate its earth-born sway,

O’er-ruling Love in wisdom planned;

While human might did glut its greed

With nod of law to sanction crime,

A good, by higher law decreed,

Went forth, encircling earth and time.

Far-reaching, ’twas to win the world—

Their cruel deeds of blinded rage—

Their mocking taunts like hell-brands hurled,

Still echo from the sacred page;

[100]

That bitter cup—the crown of thorn

Upon His suffering, sinless brow—

That wail, adown the ages borne—

Are loving worship winning now.

O! blot the hard, blasphemous creed,

“A sacrifice for wrath of God;”

And teach the world ’twas human deed

That stained with blood Golgotha’s sod.

The reeling earth and darkened sun

Proclaimed aloud Jehovah’s frown;

Yet taught us that His holy one

Had by life’s cross won Heaven’s crown.

That tho’ he passed thro’ death—the tomb

To calm a world in maddened strife,

From out its broken bars of gloom

A joy would beam to beacon life,

And bless for us that morning light

That points the glory path he trod

From persecution, death and night,

Through Resurrection, up to God.

’Tis through His bearing mortal woes

We feel the throb of Love Divine!

Though wrung with agonizing throes,

His words with God-like mercy shine;

[101]

They wake the world to faith and hope—

E’en from old Memnon’s music trill,

They turn the dusky Ethiope

To catch their soul-impassioned thrill.

“Forgive—they know not what they do!”—

O, holy prayer! In every tongue

Its tender pleading pulses thro’,

As when from Calvary’s cross it rung!—

O, arms of Love’s infinitude!

They still reach down to earth from Heaven

To bind in one great brotherhood,

Through Him, the rescued world—forgiven.

[102]

Feed My Lambs.

Jesus said, with tender pleading,

“If ye love me, feed my lambs”;

Thro’ His word He’s interceding—

Feed my lambs, my precious lambs;

(Chorus)—If ye love me, feed my lambs,

Feed my lambs, my precious lambs—

If ye love me feed my lambs.

From the hedges and the highways,

Bring the lambs all safely in;

Seek the wanderers in the byways,

Save them from the blight of sin.

If ye love me, etc.

Find each little son and daughter,

Bring them in with tender care;

Lead them to the crystal water,

In the pastures green and fair:—

If ye love me, etc.

[103]

The Kingdom of Heaven.

“Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, in earth as in Heaven.”

O, the kingdom of Heaven will come!—

When His will shall be done

Upon earth, as above,

And victory won

Through a union of love,

Then, the kingdom of Heaven will come.

Our Christian Endeavor

Has linked, and forever,

The lands of all climes

Where the Savior is known.

O, bright is the morning

That brings us the dawning

Of the day that’s to band,

In one army, His own!

O, the kingdom of heaven will come!

When Christians, uniting,

The common foe fighting

Forget every difference

Of doctrine and creed,

[104]

And, hushing their pleading

For selfish succeeding,

Beg Heaven’s best gift

For humanity’s need,

Then the kingdom of Heaven will come.

When fervent in action

They trample on faction,

Intolerance, arrogance,

Tread them all down,

And put forth endeavor,

Through loving work ever,

For the saving of souls

With no thought of the crown,

Then, the kingdom of Heaven will come.

When earnest endeavor—

Most powerful lever—

Is thrust under sin

By all Christendom’s might,

Its walls will soon crumble—

The structure must tumble

When hotly assailed

By the legions of Right,

Aye, the kingdom of heaven will come.

When Christians are one,

Like the Father and Son,

[105]

And sects of all names

At one altar can kneel,

In God’s love believing,

For heaven achieving,

This creed and this purpose

Inspiring their zeal,

Then the kingdom of heaven will come.

[106]

Supplication.

O, thou Savior, Brother, mine,

God’s own love and tenderness,

Sent of Him with power divine—

Sent to soothe, sustain and bless:—

Light of Life! Oh blessed Word,

Be my help! Dear Savior come!

Hear my spirit’s pleading, Lord—

Pleading tho’ my lips are dumb.

Groping now in sorrow’s night

Guide, oh, guide me, Lord, I pray,

Quicken Thou my spirit’s sight

That I walk in wisdom’s way—

Be Thou, Lord, a presence nigh—

Thou canst still the angry sea,

Thou hast known Gethsemane—

O, Compassion, hear my cry!

Deep in agony of soul

Mother-love cries up to Thee—

Fiends have bound him to the bowl—

O, break his chains and set him free!

[107]

The Portrait.

O, arms of protection, now folded so still!—

Alone in the world, so wide and so chill!

O, eyes that would glow in a worshipful gaze!—

They’ll bless me no more with their love-beaming rays!

O, heart of devotion! thy warm throbbings o’er

Can give me asylum from sorrow no more.

* * * * *

O, veil it!—this lifeless creation of art—

The perfect is sacredly shrined in my heart!

Not silent, compassionless, framed in with gold,

Nor mantled with shadows of coffin and mould,

But youthful and strong and warm with the fire

That glows in a soul lit with noble desire.

Ay, thought gropeth not thro’ the darkness and gloom

Where the mortal is held in the bonds of the tomb.

[108]

Progression is stamped by the hand of God’s love;

The life coming after to this is above!

Our faith reaches up to the realms of bliss,

The sphere He has fashioned—the Home beyond this.

The deeds that gave blessing in the pathways of earth

Give impress and form to the Heavenly birth.

That face, beaming ever with the glorified light

Won here, in defending convictions of Right,

My soul, in its holy of holies, where free

From earth’s thronging distractions in spirit I see.

This portrait I gaze on—the glorified one—

And that is, to this, as a star, to the sun.

[109]

Out in the Woods.

Glad haunts of the summer!—the dim forest aisles,

Where Sylva receives us with welcoming smiles—

Gives couch of soft mosses, embowered with vines,

And smoothes from the forehead, care’s deep written lines.

Refreshing, she brings, for the world-weary brain

And soothes, with her silence, its fever and pain!—

Bids Somnus pour sweets from which restfulness flows,

And, hushing her realm into holiest calm,

She lulls the sick soul into gentle repose,

While winds, with the leafage, are chanting a psalm

That charms with its rythm. Rev’ry’s doorways unclose—

We slip to forgetfulness—sleep that is balm.

* * * * *

[110]

The musical tinkle of the murmuring stream

Gave warp, for the web, of a beautiful dream,

And woof for the weaving, the slumber-god chose

From fragrance of violets, and queenly wild-rose.

The sunshine that sifted thro’ the crowns of the trees,

Made threadings of gold with the shadows of these!

The breeze, touching lightly, with cool finger tips

Was the kiss of an angel on the tired spirit’s lips.

O, the eider-down couches of slumberous ease,

And the tapestried halls that the millionaires please,

Can never, such rest, on the weary bestow,

As we find in this palace, where the luxuries grow.

Majestical forest!—Asylum of Rest,

Where the crowd-jostled soul is ineffably blest—

Where primeval old trees, in their grandeur and might,

Guard Solitude’s shrine, from the vandal-world’s sight;

[111]

Where spice-bearing shrubs, and the sweet-scented ferns

Float odors as rich as when frankincense burns,

And the praise-breathing song of the thrush, from the boughs,

Wakes worship unknown thro’ the low-muttered vows.

“First temples of God!”—and still nearest His throne,

Where the spirit may drink, at the fountain, alone,

Receiving His blessing through the still, small voice,

While Nature’s true Acolytes whisper—rejoice.

[112]

Unforgiven.

Ah! that “Past”—that bitter parting,

Long ago, yet vivid seems—

Oft in midnight’s black arms folded

I have lived it o’er in dreams;

As a presence it has shadowed

Every path of life I’ve tried—

If I joined the festive circle

It was stalking by my side.

If I sat at hush of even

With a sense of love and trust,

It would come and stand before me,

Hissing out the word—unjust;

It has stretched its ghostly fingers

For all blessings to destroy,

And has poured its gall and wormwood

In each lifted cup of joy.

Had you winged a sweet forgiveness,

Sent it o’er the “silent line,”

It had proved a benediction

Falling on your life and mine.

[113]

Through the years that phantom presence,

Like a black bird o’er my door,

Seemed to say, by silent glowering,

“I will leave thee nevermore.”

You can drive this haunting demon,

Send in place a snowy dove—

Only breathe the longed for blessing,

Not youth’s fervent tale of love,

And on friendship’s sacred altar

Light a pure and holy flame,

That may burn before the angels

Without blanch or blush of shame.

[114]

The Evening and the Morning.

“At Evening time it shall be light.”—Bible.

“The evening twilight of this life meets the morning twilight of the next and they kiss each other.”—L. H. F.

When Life’s evening twilight gathers

Darkling shadows from the tomb,

Then a bright celestial morning

Kisses back the gathering gloom;

Robed in beauty’s bright adorning

This aurora—dawning glory,

Kisses back the gathering gloom.

When the crimson tide is throbbing

With the hopes that wildly mount,

And the sensuous soul is drinking

From enjoyment’s sparkling fount,

Then the thoughts will turn with shrinking

From the coming of life’s gloaming—

Death seems then a Stygian fount.

But when life’s weary day is closing—

When the lengthening shadows fall,

Sweetly singing angel voices

Come with blessing in their call!

[115]

The departing soul rejoices

With prevision, of Elysian,

Gladly welcoming the call.

As the spirit fetters loosen

And the soul gains greater height,

It will see the evening shadows

Meet and kiss the dawning light;

And, dispelling all the shadows,

This supernal life eternal,

Opens into morning light.

Aye, the golden gates swing open!

To reveal the splendors bright;

From His throne the glory streaming

Haloes Death with holy light;

Angels voicing their rejoicing—

Heaven’s mansions brightly gleaming,

Flood Life’s evening time with light.

[116]

The Unseen.

Do you feel my spirit with you—

Feel my kiss upon your lips?

Doth your heart throb with the message

That the messenger outstrips?

Ay, I know your thought, responding,

Know this soul-touch is of thine,

That you send me tender soothing

O’er love’s subtile, unseen line.

Soul to soul can tell its sorrow,

Sympathy response impart—

Joy can flash o’er lines of distance,

Touch and thrill a kindred heart.

Loneliness! I scarcely know it;

Loved ones in my spirit’s reach

Know my call and give me answer—

Silence pulses with their speech.

We have glimpse of joys, thro’ this one,

That await the soul above,

Where unbroken, sweet communion

Flows thro’ sympathy and love.

[117]

Painting.

O, beauteous Art! with heart o’erfilled with joy I stand

And offer up to God its silent, grateful praise

That He, in blessing, hath endowed a human hand

With gifts so near divine;

Thro’ these creations, warmed to life in Genius’ blaze,

Doth inspiration shine.

Here, oriental scenes are brought within my reach;

The beauty of the castled Rhine, in softened hues,

With fine, bewitching charm o’er-mastering speech,

My raptured gaze enchains;

I roam in dream the land whose purple vintage strews

With wealth its hills and plains.

And thus I dream and drink the blest enchantment in,

That flows from art, with full, ineffable delight;

[118]

Forgetting earth is cursed with sorrow, death and sin,

I taste supernal bliss,

And, in this ecstacy of joy, a world of light,

It seems, hath dropped to this.

Yet not with those I’d join who throng Art’s crowded hall,

Whose motive is to prove themselves profound in art

By use of bulky words, but which, in strident fall,

Each hearer doth impress

With lack of gift to grasp what colors may impart,

Or canvass may express.

Nor go with her whose hand, with long and tedious drill

Has learned to daub with paint—whose tongue, with flippant ease,

Can toss artistic nomenclature round at will,

Yet nothing knows of art—

Of art’s true self, whose secret power to hold and please

Is soul, in every part.

[119]

I’d put the shoes from off my feet, and then, alone

Before the work, would feel I stood on holy ground—

That there a spirit with its God had talked, and by His own

Had been informed, inspired—

Aye, minds should be, before they range this sacred bound,

In thoughtfullness attired.

And thus prepared, Perception’s polished plates receive

The artist’s dream, that seems with pulsing life aglow,

And o’er it Fancy’s magic fingers silent weave

Her draperies so real—

We seethe dimpling lake—we hear the streamlets liquid flow,

And shadowed coolness feel.

[120]

The Christian’s Armor.

For the Band of Hope.

Firmly stand, unyielding wrestle,

All ye noble, earnest, youth,—

You are soldiers—God is calling,

Gird yourselves about with truth.

Wear the helmet of Salvation—

Let your feet with peace be shod,

Turn the fiery darts of evil

With the shield of “Faith in God.”

Arm you with the Spirit’s weapon,

’Tis God’s blessed, holy word,—

With the breast-plate of the righteous

You shall conquer Satan’s horde.

Then with earnest supplication

Hold the way to Heaven’s throne;

By the spirit’s true devotion

God will know and bless his own.

[121]

To My Friend,

Mrs. Anna Prichard.

And is time old? How swift he runs!

His months like birds of passage fly.

How slow he rolled a year of suns

When we were children, you and I,

How far away the spring time seemed

When winter wore his angry frown—

An age, when apple blossoms gleamed

Ere they would drop their fruitage down.

Then childhood’s eager heart was waiting

For expectations to unfold,

And churlish time seemed years belating

The wished-for blessings to withhold;

Then Fancy’s fingers held the brush

And painted all the future bright;

Its clouds but showed the rosy flush

Each dawn had woven with its light.

Impatient then, our youthful feet

To climb the distant sun clad hills

Where Pleasure, from her vintage sweet,

For each, a golden chalice fills—To

[122]

stand beneath the shining arch,

By rainbow-tinted promise spanned:—

What fine advance, in Life’s grand march,

Our strong, young courage planned.

But ah! in life’s late afternoon,

No worldly wealth, no laurels won—

I grieve that time has fled so soon

With so much planned, left all undone;

The barren years, like surf-worn sand,

With glints of sun and shadow flecked,

Are strewn with fragments as the strand

And show where Hope’s rich cargoes wrecked.

No mould of sloth lies o’er the years—

No waste of dissipation’s fire

Is smoldering in regrets and tears,

Yet youth’s fond dream—intense desire

A cruel fate has still denied;

Or, was it Heaven’s kind decree

That set that cherished wish aside

To bring a richer gift to me?

There’s naught in God’s infinitude

Of gifts for us, like home and wife,

And happy, blessed motherhood,

The crowning gift of woman’s life.

[123]

These gifts transmute to dear delight

Each humble task, all toil and care,

And keep home’s sacred altar bright

With love’s sweet offerings there.

All these, and one more gift is mine

That stirs with joy my brooding thought—

A friendship rare and true as thine,

A chain—all precious links—inwrought

With sacred trust. Oh hush, my heart,

No more in bitterness complain:

Thou wouldst not with thy treasures part

Youth’s wildest dream of power to gain.

[124]

Hill-Crest Home.

To Mrs. A. Foskett Potter.

The picture, you rave over there on the wall,

Is weak by the one hung in memory’s hall.

While that one is held by the fetters of art

To rules of perspective—can only give part,

The other has range over hill-top and dell,

From the vaulted blue sky to the depths of the well—

Can even give sense of refreshing from this—

Show stars gleaming thro’ from its seeming abyss.

It has other delights, never reached with a brush,

The ravishment held in the notes of a thrush

(The sweetest voiced bird of the singing-bird throng)

Reverberant groves all a-thrill with its song.

Then the river, that knit a bright edge on the farm,

Enmantled with vapor—etherial charm!

[125]

As if dawn and the dew, meeting, playfully kissed

When the sun peeping over dissolved them in mist;

Like a gauzy, white chrisom cloth lightly it lies

O’er the rosy-faced morning, new-born of the skies.

Now, mellow and sweet as the music of dream,

Or a softly touched lute, comes the song of the stream;

Enchanted I listen, ay, listen and gaze

Till sound seems enwreathed with this luminous haze

That’s woven for nymphs, of the sunshine and spray;

And veiled in these light robes they mingle in play

Till on bloom scented breezes they’re floated away.

I promised to tell of my humble old home,

But my pen wanders off where my feet used to roam,

So the home of my childhood I picture for you

Must cover the rambles “my infancy knew.”

Come, stand ’neath that maple with me, if you will:

[126]

The manse, looking south from the brow of the hill,

Has the River, the valley, “The Island” in view—

(O! if mem’ry’s bright search-light could give it to you,

And you, with my childhood’s own vision, could see

The love-lighted beauty, that glowed there for me!)

While eastward the valley-farms glint thro’ the trees,

Whose grandeur had saved them to the thither-most shore,

And hills, as a back ground of beauty for these,

A richly-robed forest in stateliness bore;

And this, to my child fancy, held up the skies

Where the dawn, stealing in thro’ their bright rosy dyes,

Peeped in at my window to waken me when

The sun-gleams, aflash in the dew-spangled glen,

Out rivaled Golconda in jewels and gold—

When lambkins went frolicking down from the fold

To nip the soft grass or to drink from the brook—Ah,

[127]

there was a spot, just beyond where they drank,

Where the brook cut the hill for its opposite bank,

And nestled above was a shadowy nook

With a rustic root-bench which a wind-warring tree

Had thrown out to anchor its hold on the hill:

There, glad as the laughter of innocent glee,

Came the musical tinkle and play of the rill,

A melody sweet, to that ærie of mine,

Where, safe from intrusion as cliff dweller, I

Heard, fresh from her lips, Nature’s message divine,

Told sweetly, thro’ beauties, of earth and the sky.

An old fallen tree made a foot-bridge across

That led to this hiding—this sanctum of mine.

Bright fern fringes bordered its soft rug of moss—

A wild grape had thatched with a clambering vine

That hid for my coming bright sparkles of dew.

O, bower of beauty, so temptingly cool!

’Twas the home of the fairies and they only knew

The hours spent there that were stolen from school.

[128]

The brook-bordered fields of that moderate farm

Had each, for my heart, individual charm.—

The skies that bent over had glories unknown

To all other lands, even Italy’s own.

More golden its sunsets than any since seen:—

Its shadowy woodland, so rich in its green,

Had springs purling down in a dusky ravine:

There oft at the fount, where the waters distilled,

My leaf-fashioned cup I have held to be filled.

O, nectar twould be if again I could drink

Of the sparkles that fell there like pearls from its brink,

As it tinkled down sweetly from its rock-basined source

To join with its peers in their river-ward course.

In those shadowy depths, hid away from the world,

Most delicate forms of the fronds were uncurled:

Spring-beauties, anemonies, clematis white,

With violets, bluebells and maiden-hair fern,—

There were some of them ever to keep the spot bright,

To waft me good-bye and to greet my return.

[129]

Then the hillside, our play-ground—I never can tell

Its riches of beauty in bower and dell.

The sunrise would kiss with its first ruddy glow

Then slip to the river that murmured below

And lighting its ripples with flashes of gold

It made all the valley a joy to behold.

That River! It ever kept time with my heart,—

Grew into my soul, of my life was a part.

It echoed my laughter, was sad when I wept—

When drowsy it lulled me with song till I slept.—

’Twas playmate and teacher, companion and friend,

From the “deep-hole” that mirrored the trees at “the bend”

To that spot of enchantment, where the willows bent low

To whisper their love. There the river went slow

As if hushing its wonted, wild, rollicking flow

To linger and listen—the story, so sweet,

’Twould have all the zephyr-swayed branches repeat.

But the loveliest view from the home on the hill—

The one that could ever enrapture and thrill,

[130]

Was a calm summer eve with the stars beaming thro’

From the unclouded depths of the fathomless blue,—

“The city of God” filling vastness above,

Each mansion aglow with the light of His love.

Enhancing the beauty a broad, rising moon,

That followed a day with a languorous noon—

A day that in going left the sun-door ajar,

When a breeze, that was born of a rain-cloud afar,

Had stolen thro, softly, with the great evening star,

And whispered a vow to the languishing flowers

To bring them, ere morning, refreshing in showers.

Then the murmur of waters—the ripple in view,

The robings of Nature, aglitter with dew,

The sway of the trees, and the rose-petals strewn—

The kiss of the breeze, that has breath of the June.

Just sit in our group on the balcony there

And dream of this scene, inexpressibly fair

(Remember this gable looks square at the noon):

[131]

How the gateways of glory thrown wide by the moon

Could pour their white floods on the beautiful scene—

What charm in the mingling of shadow and sheen!

The river went north in its tortuous trend

And wound thro’ the valley with many a bend.

This lake-like expanse, deep and smoothe, as you see,

Lying right in the pathway, ’tween Luna and me,

On an evening like this seemed a great burnished glass.

The Island shore here, had a margin of grass—

The round little cove cutting into its edge

Grew ferns on its banks and was dotted with sedge.

In the far-reaching shadows of lofty old trees

This part of the Island was hid from the noon;

Its quiet invited to slumberous ease;

Here the River flowed gently as Afton or Doon.

Kind Nature had woven a pleachy thick screen

Of forest and vines that were standing between,

And made this remote from the town and its mills.

[132]

The zephyr-stirred leaves with their mystical chant—

That soft, lulling murmur, that muffles and stills—

Hushed the tumult and jar of the noisy “old plant”

And made this a spot ever calm and serene,

Fit temple for worship, embosomed in green.

Here, the river seemed charmed by some mythical lore—

It loitered along, seemed reluctant to pass,

While eddying wavelets crept up on the shore

And kissed, with their cool lips, the velvety grass.

On, slowly it flows until reaching a place

Where a glimpse may be caught of the swift running “Race;”

There it breaks into foam with a current so wild—

They rush to the meeting like mother and child.

With a plaint in its story that the mother-stream thrills,

Race babbles and tells how it toiled at the mills—Was

[133]

prisonned and held, by the strength of the flume—

Was power that wrought on the spindle and loom.

Received in her bosom with loving embrace

They mingle their songs, then, the River and Race,

Delighting us all with their musical tones,

While silver-capped ripples go dancing o’er stones.

* * * * *

Aye, “Hill-crest” had beauty beyond all compare,

But words can ne’er picture how wondrously fair

For one whose misfortune ’tis not to have seen

That river—that hillside—the trees in their green—

Heard the music of waters, o’er pebbles at play,

Or, lapping ’mong rocks and then swirling away—

The brook leaping down to be lost in the stream

As womanhood merges our girl-hood’s young dream—If

[134]

her childhood’s bare feet have ne’er pressed that cool sod

Where first I loved Nature, thro’ Nature her God.

[135]

Lillies of the Valley.

O, pearly, waxen, lilly bells!

Glad the tale your coming tells—

Blithest time, of all the year,

Happy, blooming spring is here

With lillies-of-the-valley.

Shining like the precious gem,

Divers bring from ocean’s floor;

God in blessing scattered them

Blooming by the humblest door;

Springing in some sheltered nook,

Peeping by a mouldering wall,

Nodding by a babbling brook,

Purest, sweetest flowers of all,

Are lillies-of-the-valley.

Hidden from life’s cares and frets

Is the loved embowered spot

Sacred to our floral pets—

Lillies and forget-me-not;

Tho’ the poet’s fondest dream

[136]

Wreaths about the violet,

With the morning’s dew agleam,

Lovlier and sweeter yet

Are lillies-of-the-valley.

Roses fade and fall apart—

Lose their beauty with their bloom,

In the lillies perfect heart

Lingers long its sweet perfume;

Mem’ries dear we’ll ne’er forget,

With their tender thrills of bliss,

Hover round the mignonette,

Yet, a charm supreme to this,

Have lillies-of-the-valley.

Queens of color, tall and proud

Bloom among the asphodels,

But of all that lauded crowd

None so loved as lilly bells!

Pansy bright with dreamy eyes

Seems acquaint with mystic lore,

Whispers “hope” when sorrow sighs,

Yet, we love the lillies more,

Sweet lillies-of-the-valley.

They will breathe the tender thought

Sympathy would fain reveal,

But, with love’s fond message fraught,

Half their charm is to conceal.

[137]

Lillies of the Valley.

Rosebud boldly tells the tale

Cupid sent it to confess—

With the fragrance they exhale

Lillies whisper,—“You may guess.”

[138]

Pearly Shells.

All the rainbow hues are hiding

In the pearly shells of white,

But their beauties are depending

On the mystic powers of light;—

Going, coming, like the blushes

On a modest maiden’s cheek,

As her heart-throb quick confesses

What her lips would never speak.

Husband, there’s a heart that’s loving

With devotion pure and deep;

If you’d know its fullest blessing,

If the treasure you would keep,

You must flash the light upon it,

Beaming out from loving eyes;

Then, as shell, reflecting sunlight,

It will glow with lovely dyes.

All within and all about it

Soon will catch the won’drous charm,

By reflection and absorption

Home will aye be bright and warm;

[139]

But if left alone in darkness,

Through a life of gloom and night,

Like the sea-shell, pure and pearly,

It will be but cold and white.

[140]

Courage.

Now with zeal that will not falter

Rally once again for Right,

Trusting ever and believing

God is all supreme in might.

Let us work—give earnest effort,

Ere the day in darkness set,

Work with faith and love untiring—

He will crown our labors yet.

Though allies of rum are legion,

Fear no evil may betray,

For He’s given angels o’er us

Charge to keep us in the way.

We shall “tread upon the adder,”

If our faith be strong in God;

Aye, “the dragon we shall trample”

If with “Gospel Peace” we’re shod.

[141]

Trailing Arbutus.

Emblematic Flower of Michigan W. C. T. U.

In Flora’s dominion no flower’s so fitting

To symbol our union of labor and love;

Not tender and petted, a hot-house exotic,

It lives when the tempest is raging above.

Sweet forest-born flower! ’Twas Michigan’s dower

When Nature apportioned her gifts that are rare—

So lovely, yet lowly! Affection, that’s holy,

Seems blent with its fragrance and breathing a prayer

That the loved may be borne in the arms of His care.

Its coming we hail as a promise of blessing—

That chains shall be riven, a glory be born;

Its delicate hue is a hint of our mission—

The soft, rosy blush that first tinges the morn,

When hope is awakening and gloom is receding—

[142]

A pressage of light that shall gladden the world,

When darkness has fled and the cloud-rack is lifted

And day’s golden banners on the hills are unfurled.

It needs not the florist, with art and punctilio

Nor asks for the smiles of the sun-lighted skies,

But richest and brightest, ’tis found in seclusion,

In depths of the woodland where dark shadow lies;

Far up on the highlands, or creeping on lowlands,

’Mong towering oaks or ’neath whispering pines,

The shell-tinted bloom of our sweet, trailing laurel

The lowliest objects with beauty entwines.

’Tis Purity’s emblem—Priscilla’s loved flower!

Oft springing in fenlands where dark, sodden mould

Grows vile-odored herbage, e’en poison-fed night-shade,

[143]

Yet, pure there, its waxen, sweet blossoms unfold.

Thus white-ribbon bands, thro’ the moral morasses,

Tho’ threading the paths which the vilest are in,

With purity throned in the soul of all action,

May labor ’mid evils, unsullied by sin.

Ah! truly, no flower in Flora’s dominion,

Can symbol the virtues and graces like this—

’Tis faith and endurance in winter’s wild tempest,

While gentleness tenderly speaks in the kiss

That comes in its fragrance, on fairy winged zephyr

And hope, in the buds swelling under the snow,

Is whispering of joys when the full opened blossoms

Shall herald the summer, with roseate glow.

We’ll gather it in, from our own native woodlands,

And wreathe, with its beauty, our altar of prayer;

The holiest thought, with its ambient odor,

Is stirred, as with incense, afloat on the air.

[144]

We love it!—we love it! our sweet trailing laurel,

And make it our emblem in labor for God—

For home, with its blessings and love-lighted altar,

And land of our birth, with its trial-tracked sod.

[145]

Encouragement.

What wealth of enjoyment a sentence may hold

That flows in a rill of encouraging words!

The heart’s weary wings with new strength will unfold,

While quick resolution all feebleness girds.

The sunset may brighten—outrival the dawning,

If sympathy’s warm touch the drooping life thrills;

Tho’ autumn has put out her gold-tassled awning

And mantled with haze all the woodlands and hills—

Tho’ the vintage hath yielded the first of its wines—

Tho’ shadows lie eastward in wavering lines,

And evening has whispered the low uttered warning—

“The glories of Day have all drifted afar”—

The spirit will rally encouraged by love.

[146]

E’en twilight may deepen, if only this star

Shall gleam with its vestal light brightly above,

We’ll work thro’ life’s gloaming, till angels unbar

The orient gates of Eternity’s morning.

[147]

Faith.

O, by and by the sun will shine again—

Will throw glad light on hill, and field, and plain;

The earth will smile ’neath Plenty’s joyous reign,

And we shall know that “God remembers the world.”

Aye, by and by the clouds will roll away

And then a greater boon, a golden day

Will seem, because we’ve known a gloomy May

When Doubt, o’er brooding, shadowed all our world.

Let Hope’s bright sunshine gladden every hour,

E’en tho’ the skies with angry tempests lower;

Believe, beyond, above, a higher Power

Doth watch and guard, with loving, care the world.

Shrink not nor e’er, with dread, thy part delay;

[148]

With faith and courage meet each coming day—

Let duties well performed pave all thy way,

Thus make a royal pathway thro’ the world.

Tho’ sorrows should be thick along thy path,

Remember none are sent to thee in wrath;

Love fires the bolt that makes the lightning scath—

A law that gives a brighter, better world.

With frowning face Calamity may come,

Ay, strike a hemisphere with terror dumb,

But let no boding fear thy faith benumb,

For He who made, in wisdom rules the world.

Tho’ skies and seas their floods together roll—

Tho’ earth should pass, a shriveled scroll,

His care is over each immortal soul—

He’ll gather us to His eternal world.

[149]

Nirvana.

Possession blest of that Celestial sphere

Beyond the reach of hope and fear;

Salvation’s port—Elysian shore

Where souls remain, forevermore,

In blissful calm, disturbed by naught

Evolved by ranging, restless Thought,

And where Eternal arms of Peace

Enfolding, give secure release

From chains that bind, to Death and Sin—

A severance from the What-has-been—

An end of seeming endless range;

No farther transmigrating change,

But Rest of soul, that’s sweet, supreme,

Beyond, the touch of Life’s wild dream:

A draught that quenches all desire—

Extinguishes Ambition’s fire,

And leave, an essence, pure, divine,

That shall with Brama ever shine,

Quiescent in that blest repose

To which the wise Guatama rose.

[150]

Heredity.

Thro’ your Eden creeps the Serpent

Luring to the paths of sin:

In your own, weak self-indulgence

Life accursing crimes begin:

Aye, you blight your own with evils

Yielding to the tempter’s sway,

Hushing conscience, Sin imputing

To Eve’s early, shadowed day.

Science swings her torch above you

From her lofty templed heights—

Paths, by which the Race climb upward,

By command of God she lights;

Can you, with His laws before you,

Violate your sacred trust?

Dare you taint the soul you’re moulding

For Eternity, with lust?

Holy is your mission, mother,

Lives confided to your care—

Shall they, of your dissipations

Foulest scars forever bear?

[151]

Hush the voice of self-indulgence—

Thrust the serpent from your heart,

That he lure not to partaking

Of the sins you may impart.

While the fires of Being kindle

At your own life’s flame and glow

And the mother love is springing

From this holy interflow—

While the crimson tide is pulsing

Thro’ but one heart, for the two,

Stain not thou, with sin, the fountain

That the new life passes through.

[152]

Pebbles.

Pebbles, thrown upon the shore

By a storm-stirred wild commotion,

Tell of tumult, crash and roar,

When wild furies lashed the ocean.

Pebbles, gathered from the shore

When the waves were only sighing,

Tell of balmy evening strolls

When the sunset fires were dying.

Pebbles—some of brightest hue—

That were snatched by dimpled fingers

When the waves came rolling in—

Loving thought around them lingers.

Pebbles, in life’s pathway lie

That the careless roughly tread,

While another passing by

Finds them gems that lustre shed.

Pebbles—scan them—cast away

Wave-worn, rounded bits of stone,

[153]

But if one hath lighting ray,

Keep the treasure as thine own.

* * * * *

When the heart is sorrow-laden

Seek the spirit’s shrine of prayer,

Jesus there will meet and bless you

And you’ll leave your burdens there.

* * * * *

As the blessed, healing mentha

Holds for mortal pains nepentha,

So hath sympathy the art

To soothe the bruises of the heart.

* * * * *

From each act, however small,

Some result must ever fall;

Drop a pebble in the wave

Distant shores its ripples lave.

* * * * *

Give gladness to childhood! ’twill brighten life’s years;

Pour hydromel for it, unmingled with tears,

So fondly, caressingly, memory clings

To youth’s every joy, forgetting its stings.

* * * * *

[154]

Experience teaches some lessons of worth—

That wealth is not always of lordliest birth,

That duty makes labor, tho’ humble, sublime—

That crucial trial gives strength to the soul:—

There’s no royal road to Life’s coveted goal,

Earth’s throngs must all pass the same doorway of Time.

* * * * *

If Heaven’s light beam on your tears,

Hope’s bright bow will span the cloud,

While God’s own promise, calming fears,

Will lift the soul by sorrow bowed.

* * * * *

Mystery deep, thy doors unbar,

And let us look within!—

Thought goes ranging far—afar,

On webs our fancies spin.

* * * * *

The life I live is not my own—

’Tis subterfuge and dross,

The yearning soul makes hidden moan,

With secret sense of loss.

* * * * *

[155]

O, dear Savior, I am weary—

Let me rest my soul with Thee!

Mansions bright, Thou art preparing—

Wilt thou, Jesus, welcome me?

* * * * *

For the bright, warm joys, once cherished,

There’s a withered rose and a brown, sere leaf;

Ah! dear were the hopes that perished,

Yet there’s wealth of life, in the golden sheaf.

* * * * *

When a gleam of the sun, thro’ a rift in the storm,

Throws a light on our path, that was shadowed before,

We look to the cloud, for the beautiful form

Of the bow, that is promise to us, evermore.

* * * * *

The rose is girt with thorns about,

The berries sweet, with briars—

Thus Fate doth ever hedge us from

Our heart’s supreme desires.

* * * * *

Tossing, rolling, restless sea,

Picture thou of Life to me—Shadow-clouds

[156]

now floating o’er,

Foam and drift-wood on the shore:—

Depths of dark and billowy waves,

Wrecking hopes and hollowing graves—

Breaking on the beach in moans,

Seem thy cavern’s echoed groans.

Prosperous winds, and thou wilt bear,

On thy heaving bosom fair,

Snowy sails, with treasures laden

From the distant, sun-kissed Aden,—

Costly fabrics—richest stores,

For their own, dear, home-lit shores,

Where Love’s altars brightly burn,

While she waits their glad return.

* * * * *

In all this beauteous world of ours

What gift, of Love, so sweet as flowers!

* * * * *

O, sweet is the fountain of soothing

That ever is found in His Word—

Drink deeply when heart-wounds are bleeding

And the peace of the spirit is stirred.

[157]

Words.

O, words may be loving and mellow in tone,

Sweet as the dew on the flowers of Hermon,

Gently imparting a blessing their own,

Precious with promise, as Olivet’s sermon.

Words may be careless, and cruel and coarse—

Be tauntingly hurled, or so bitterly spoken,

Resistless as lightning’s destroying force,

They scar with their scathing the heart they have broken.

Words may have edge that is keener than steel—

May pierce with their points like the swift-flying arrow;

They hurt with these stings while the victim will feel,

Then tear through the heart like a torturing harrow.

Words may be venomed with malice and spite,

May wither with scorn, with contempt and derision—

[158]

dreaded like adders when coiling to bite

Or hiss out their poison in whispered suspicion.

Aye, words may be vile as a basilisk’s breath—

A falsehood the germ—an ovum of evil,

Impregnate with calumny’s virus innate,

Then heated and hovered by envy and hate;

Thus “brooded by serpents,” like the monster medieval,

Come forth with his powers of blasting with death.

But words that are warmed in the sunlight of love

Will soothe with their feeling a brother’s affliction;

’Tis the Spirit from heaven that comes like a dove,

So gently descending in sweet benediction.

’Tis blessed receiving what kindness imparts,

How trifling so ever the token,

Thrice blessed, the giving of solace to hearts

That words of injustice have blighted and broken.

There’s comfort and balm for life’s various smarts

In words of true sympathy, tenderly spoken.

[159]

Mother.

Oh! mother, mine, mother, mine, come to me now,

With a touch of thy hand sweep the care from my brow;

Oh, come, on the wings of the silences come,

Dear mother, my own, as you reigned in our home.

Oh! mother, mine, mother, mine, come now at eve.

I sit in the gloaming, in loneliness grieve;

The world is so selfish, so cold and unkind,

Sweet solace for pain in thy love I would find.

Oh! mother, mine, mother, mine, hear me, I pray!

In the silence of night, blot the sorrows of day;

And point me away from the earth and its care.

To the beautiful dwelling—that mansion so fair,

[160]

Where mother, mine, mother mine, waiteth for me,

With loved ones who’re watching my barque on life’s sea—

Who’ll stretch out their welcoming hands from the shore,

When I reach the glad haven, all buffetings o’er.

[161]

Hands.

There are hands we fondly cherish

Not alone for form and grace,

But the loving deeds that mold them,

Place them next a sainted face.

They can soothe as if with magic,

When the fever-furies rage;

Their caresses, unobstrusive,

E’en a heartache can assuage.

Hands can emphasize a welcome,

Far beyond the gifts of speech,

And their language, plain and truthful,

Doubt did never yet impeach.

Aye! there’s feeling warm and tender,

Ever pulsing in the palm,

In whose kindly, silent pressure

Sorrow finds a healing balm.

Love’s sweet mysteries course their fingers,

For their lightest touch of tips

Has the secret gift of thrilling,

Like affection’s clinging lips.

[162]

They can knit with mystic flosses

Such a net about the heart—

Earth has naught so near a heaven

As this thraldom doth impart.

Hands have heart-beats throbbing through them

And the lightning flash of thought;

’Tis by such that grand impulsions

Into living deeds are wrought.

Hands may be a sculptor’s pattern,

Tipped with smooth, shell-tinted nails,

Yet convey a touch, repulsive

As of scaly serpent trails.

If the soul is gross and selfish,

There’s no art the trait conceals,

But the hand in mold or clasping,

To the sentient heart reveals.

Idle hands are limp and nerveless,

Lack expression, fervor, grasp—

They receive nor give sensation,

Simply lie within your clasp.

Hands may flash a wealth of jewels,

Yet display a pauper soul—

God inscribes these outspread tablets

From the spirit’s hidden scroll.

[163]

Endymion.

When the noble son of Zeus

Asked the gift of youth immortal,

Little wot he of the ages

Stretching onward from life’s portal;

Tho’ he walked with gods, he wearied,

Wished for rest, intense and deep,—

Asked another gift of Zeus;

That of everlasting sleep.

And his thoughtless wish was granted;

Glad he hushed his soul’s repining

In the winged god’s misty vapors

And, on Latmos’ height reclining,

Laid down all earth’s cares and trials—

All its wearying heat and strife,

Yet within his dormant being,

Held the essences of life.

Fair Selene, robed in beauty,

Wandering forth in loneliness,

Bent above the youth admiring—

Touched him with a light caress;

[164]

And her gazing woke his spirit

To a dream’s ecstatic bliss,

As her lips, with tender fondness,

Snatched from his that holy kiss.

And her heart’s new, quickened pulsing

Thrilled along love’s unseen wires,—

Stirred in him responsive passion,—

Lit his soul’s electric fires.

Then the roused, enrapt Endymion,

Shaking off the slumbrous air,

Cried,—“Ye gods, take back your giving,

All life’s perils I will dare;

Wake my soul to keenest feeling,

Let its sense of pleasure reign,

Tho’ my path were paved with spear-points

I would count the waking gain.”

Glad he left the heights so longed for,

Sought the lowland’s balmy air,

Leading her, the loved Selene,

Thro’ the flowery valleys fair,

Where the paths all flash with diamonds

From the jewelled crown of Night,—

Where the lake upon his bosom

Rocks the sleeping lillies white,

[165]

And his lullaby in whispers

Floating thro’ the leafy dell,

Mingling with perfume and zephyr

Wove a sweet entrancing spell.

And ’twas there at Sylva’s altar,

With the gazing stars above,

Soul to soul, by mute impulsion,

That they pledged eternal love;

Ay, ’twas then the spheric paean,

Through the great expanses spread,

When in Beauty’s listening stillness,

Peace and Purity were wed.

And tonight I see them roaming

Thro’ the flowery paths of eld—

Thro’ the valley, by the lakelet,

Where their nuptial feast was held;

Where the moon-beams dance with shadows,

In the hushed, half-hidden glen,

Shunning Mammon’s crowded cities

And the busy walks of men.

But linger not too long, Selene,—

Hasten from thy lover’s side,

Or, in fleecy cloud-wrought vesture

From the gaze of Eos hide;

[166]

Else like darkly mantled Pleiad,

Wailing robes of forfeit glory,

Thou wilt find thy charms are stolen

By the jealous, fair Aurora.

Hasten, hasten, for she cometh,—

Venus bright doth herald now,

All Jove’s pageantry attends her,

Erse’s gems bedeck her brow,

And her royal robes are ’broidered

Rich with rose and amethyst;—

Hasten, but with thine Endymion

Keep the holy evening tryst.

[167]

Calypso—The Lover’s Pocket.

Erastes saw with vain regret

A hedge of guards was thickly set

Around the fair one he would woo;

For Flora’s aid he quick applied—

“Be art of yours with Love’s allied

And Cupid’s throng shall kneel to you.”

Then Flora wrought that mystic flower

And graced with it Love’s Sylvan bower,

And there a wildling still it grows;

The hue she gave was pearly white,

But Love would add one more delight

And mingled in a blush of rose.

T’was given such an artless guise

That e’en suspicion’s prying eyes

Doth no intriguing plan suppose:

And there within, securely hid,

Beneath the blossom’s fringy lid

The lover’s missive finds repose.

* * * * *

[168]

“Wilt thou, dear maid, thy wealth resign

And drink with me love’s ruby wine—

In weal or woe my fortune’s share?”

She wrote and hid—“I will be thine—

With love’s devotion ever mine

There’s naught but I could dare.”

A closely folded plan for flight

(That marked the nearest moonless night,)

The Orchid in its heart concealed.

While vigilance unconscious slept,

Two dusky steeds thro’ darkness swept

Across an unfrequented field

And brought the lovers quickly where

A waiting priest, with pledge and prayer,

The sacred bonds of wedlock sealed.

Paternal pride aroused, irate,

With bluster came, a moment late,—

The holy rite had joined their hands,

The vows were made, the pledges given

That bound the twain as one in heaven,

Despite his wrath and stern commands.

“How could you thus,” he cried in rage,

“Defy my will, disgrace my age!

I’ll disinherit and disown—And

[169]

you shall have eternal scorn

For wedding with that lowly born—

Aye, you shall reap as you have sown.”

* * * * *

“O, woman! thou art gall and wine—

Deceit’s worst name, to me, is thine!

I thought her will succumbed to mine,

So cheerful, happy, she had seemed.

I felt within a conscious pride

In power to hold, subdue and guide—

That she was conquered, fondly dreamed.”

“Along the wood she walked with me,

Among the wild flowers, gay and free,

(I guarded her with watchful eye,)

With eager hand she plucked and smiled

As guileless as a happy child—

No love-lorn look—no sob or sigh.”

“Aye, woman’s ways and woman’s wiles

Are knitted in with looks and smiles

By which man’s wisdom oft is foiled.

She’ll seem so gently yielding will

While scheming for her own way, still—

With sweet deceits will blind us, till

Our dearest hopes have been despoiled.”

[170]

“But, ’tis senseless nursing helpless wrath,—

Shall I strew thorns along her path

Whose only dower’s a father’s curse?—

Drive them out with want to roam?

I think I’ll take the couple home—

In truth, her parents did much worse.”

* * * * *

Calypso, still with winning grace,

Adorns the ferny, sedgey place

By purling brook or shaded dell,

And only Cupid knows its art

Of hiding in its fragrant heart

The secret, sweet, that Love would tell.

[171]

What Is Love?

Not the fierce-destroying power

Of the hot sirocco’s breath,

Withering every tender flower,

Strewing all its path with death

Or helpless, silent sorrow.

’Tis a strength that holds each feeling

But a slave to do its will—

Every wish, abjectly kneeling,

Waits its mandate to fulfill

Or creeps, by stealth, in shadow.

’Tis Life’s sacred, golden chalice,

From as rich a vintage filled

For the cottage, as the palace—

Sweetest draughts have been distilled

With want upon the lever.

’Tis a tender, true devotion,

Never soiled by thoughts of pelf,

But with gladsome, sweet emotion

To its altar bringing self,

A sacrificial offering.—

[172]

Joy’s bell whose silver ringing

Down the ages has been borne

Ever since in Eden, singing,

Wedded love hailed rosy morn—

Still the tones fall sweet as ever.

’Tis the Horeb of the spirit,

Where no coarse-shod thought may tread,

The part divine, which souls inherit

From love’s holy Fountain-Head,

Influent with our being.

[173]

Sleighing.

Hear the bells, distant bells!

How the merry music swells,

As the steed, with noble speed,

Nearer, nearer, nearer comes,

Strength doth wing his flying feet;

Onward, onward, onward going,

With a strong and rythmic beat;

Youth, with health and beauty glowing,

Blends a rippling, laughter peal

With the ringing hoofs of steel—

How the mingling music hums!

Hear the bells, joyous bells!

Love’s sweet tale their music tells,

As they go o’er glistening snow;

Wildly, wildly, rushing by,

Fainter grow the hoof-beats now,

Fainter, fainter, fainter growing;

Venus shines on evening’s brow,

Moonlight floods o’er earth are flowing;

O, the reckless wild delights

Of a sparkling, winter night’s

Sleighing, ’neath a moonlit sky!

[174]

Ho, the bells, merry bells!

Rapture in their music dwells;

Raptures sweet, in bliss repeat,

Gliding, gliding, o’er the snow.

Every pulse with pleasure thrills;

To the heart new joys revealing.

As when springtime, bird-note trills

Stir the sweetest fount of feeling,

Welling with all tender thought,

From the dulcet music caught,

Blending all in joyous flow!

* * * * *

Hark, the bells—homeward bells!

Something now their music quells,

For they go, tinkling—so—

Tinkle—tinkle—seem to wait;

Why that steed such lagging feet,

When returning, homeward going?

(’Mong the furs their faces meet)—

Ah! that nag is very knowing,

Stepping lightly o’er the snow—

Have their whispers, soft and low,

Changed his mood and changed his gait?

[175]

First Love.

Tender and true as the starlight of heaven,

Sweet as the heart of a bud when it opes,

Swift as the flash of the cloud-leaping levin,

Rich as the springtime in promise and hopes,

Pure as the gleam of the dew on the flowers

Is love’s first awakening in youth’s dreamy hours.

It sings in the heart like a forest-hid rill—

Runs over its rim like a rock-basined spring;

Strong, it o’erpowers cold reason with will,

Impulsively binding two lives with a ring.

It goes where it listeth, unreined as the wind,

So reckless, ’tis said, that the love god is blind.

Joyful, yet trembling like a zephyr-kissed rose,

Flushing and paling like skies of the dawn,

Silent, lest speech shall the secret disclose,

Wayward and shy as a mountain-bred fawn,

Flying the bosom where yearning to rest,

Hushing the tenderness, thrilling the heart,

Palpitant tempests disturbing the breast;

Enjoying—enduring the sweet and the smart

That comes of the wounding with Cupid’s first dart.

[176]

Man.

O, grand and worshipful that being man,

As fashioned by a maiden’s dream-lit mind!

To her, his soul has nobleness enshrined—

’Tis pure—Love’s altar-place, where God began,

’Neath Eden’s flow’ry groves, the household plan.

In rose-mist wreathed, by sweet enchantment blind,

How oft she’s worshiped, wedded, but to find

The real, no more her dream, than piping Pan.

Some “noble deeds” bear cold ambition’s stain,

And chaff is found among Love’s golden grain.

’Tis well the rose-mist lifts and clearer beams

Show man’s real self, e’en tho’ it give her pain,

Else, so idolatrous, she might, it seems,

Forget her God, if he were all she dreams.

[177]

Trust of Childhood.

An angel comes down from the realms of light,

To guard me in slumber, thro’ hours of the night;

Her presence is gentle, I feel she is there,

As soon as I’ve uttered my evening prayer;

So tenderly watching she stays in my room

Till darkness has folded his mantle of gloom.

I’ve felt on my forehead her soft finger tips

And the touch of her kiss, lightly pressed on my lips,

To waken me gently, ere leaving my bed,

When morning’s bright beauties o’er earth had been spread.

Forbearing to open my earth-gazing eyes

To look on the guardian sent from the skies,

I’ve listened and heard, e’en the rustle of wings;

And then at the casement, where mocking bird swings,

[178]

A sweeping of roses and jasmines I’ve heard,

And knew that their beauty and perfume were stirred

By her gossamer robes, as she hastened away,

To the rose-tinted gateway that opens to day;

(For Heaven, I know, is but little beyond,

Where glories of morn, in its borders have dawned);

And then by the holiness left in the room,

Afloat, like the fragrance from violet bloom,

I knew that a presence had surely been there,

Had left with me blessing, and wafted my prayer

To the throne of the Father for guidance and care.

* * * * *

O, trust of my childhood! bright halo of youth!

Come, veil for tonight the stern visage of truth;

With faith that’s elysian, I’d drift down the stream

To imagery islands, with beauty agleam,

And hear, as I heard in the far away years,

(Ere fancy’s young dream had been melted in tears),

[179]

A strain from a harp, floating over to me,

From a cloud-bannered sky, bending down to the sea,

Where golden-crowned angels could plainly be seen

With robings of white, in the glimmering sheen.

Then Heaven was near, and the curtain of blue

So thin, that at sunset the glory shone through;

Those silken illusions, inflated with joy,

Phylosophy’s hand has been swift to destroy;

And reason’s keen steel, that’s so cruelly cold,

Has cut thro’ the shimmer of heavenly gold,

And left but the hard-featured science of light

That will not be veiled for a dream of tonight.

[180]

Alone.

“Laugh and the world laughs with you;

Weep and you weep alone.”

In her soul’s secret temple she’s standing alone:

Her being’s real self, in the silence will bow;

O’er that altar, once glowing, cold ashes are strown—

Where sunshine once flooded, the shadows fall now.

Away from the world, and alone with her God,

She kneels in this consecrate place and may weep;

This temple, by coarse sandaled grossness, untrod,

Is never unbarred till the world is asleep.

She leaves there her grief, with its shadowy stole,

Concealing her anguish, with trembling and fear;—Must

[181]

laugh, tho’ it lines a black scath on her soul,

For the world will not pay for the sigh and the tear.

Aye, leaves there her sackcloth and shuts to the door;

She puts on the mask for the frivolous world

Her frail barque is launched ’mid its tumult and roar—

Unhelmed, thro’ its mammon-cut channels ’tis hurled.

The laugh, the world echoes, grows empty and hard

When the jingle of gold is the mirth-stirring power;

The soul is, by Avarice, shrivelled and scarred

When it barters for pottage, a heavenly dower.

God fits us, thro’ suffering, for Sympathy’s needs;

’Tis warring with wrong that will win for the Right;

Oft Sorrow’s lone path, to His ripe vineyard, leads—

Christ gave us, through Gethsame, heavenly light.

[182]

Go work in His vineyard wherever ’tis needed

And earnestly work for the sake of the need;

Be Fame’s fickle promise forever unheeded,

Unknown, in thy labor, the miser’s low greed.

[183]

Night.

Thro’ azure paths fair Venus comes with golden bars

To close the gates of Day. The twilight’s dusky stole

Is lightly spangled o’er with heaven’s brightest stars;

Soon Night will bring her countless ones whose ceaseless roll

Thro’ boundless depths of space, repeat creation’s song.

Thus canopied by God’s omnipotence, outspread,

The earth doth lull and soothe her surging, restless throng

With brooding calm. Sleep’s poppied sweets for toil are shed.

When strife is hushed to rest, by Nature’s drowsy hum

And barter’s dins are stilled—its flaunting ensigns furled,

When, drugged with Somnus’ wines, earth’s noisy crowds are dumb

[184]

And stillness spreads her slumber-robe, so softly o’er the world,

’Tis joy to watch Night’s queenly orb, climb up the eastern stair,

And pour her flood of silver light o’er hills and bowers,

That in the sacred silence gleam, so radiant and fair,

In glistening robes of green and dewy, fragrant flowers.

All hail, blest hour of cool repose, when Labor’s chains

That bind the mind, thro’ all the day, to weary tasks

Are loosed! Ay, now, the soul, in freedom from their pains,

May drink from founts of pure supernal joy. It basks

In glories which the night o’er earth and sky hath strown.

Compassion sweet, the dewy coolness doth impart

And dreamy perfumes, by the balmy breezes blown,

Are evening’s sweet acopic, when she folds us to her heart.

[185]

Disappointment.

We plant sometimes a tender flower—

Watch and wait through sun and shower;

Mark its tiny leaflets, green,

Then, the upward shoot between,—

Springing, springing, tendrils clinging,

Hopes like cherubs round it winging

Whispering of the blooming time.

Watch the buds burst thro’ their sheathing,

Beauty’s promise, round them wreathing,

Dream of fragrance they enfold,

Lovely blooms, almost, behold,

Reach an eager hand for grasping—

Find the tendrils all unclasping—

Withered, ere the blooming time.

[186]

Love’s Ideal.

Was there ever a love like the love of my dream?

Love, holy, unselfish, devoted and pure,

Unfailing and sweet as the flow of a stream

Whose source is a spring, that God made to endure.

A love that is love, with no blending of dross;

Where soul, unto soul, giveth strength of its own—

A love that knows never of languor or loss,

Or silently grieves that its spirit has flown.

A love with its possibles nobly fulfilled,

Where heart unto heart is e’er loyal and true,

Where blessing for each, is thro’ kindness distilled—

A rodomel never embittered with rue.

A love that the angels, rejoicing to see,

Would guard in life’s paths from the harpies that roam;

Peace, Happiness, Charity,—loveliest three—

Would make, for such lovers, a Heaven of Home.

[187]

A Legend of the Lily.

Abroad, June moon was brightly beaming

In the depths of heaven’s blue,

While the asphodels were bending

With the clinging beads of dew,

When the silver rays in silence,

Glinting thro’ the swaying trees,

Saw a modest flower turning

To a roving, balmy breeze.—

Heard the zephyr softly whisper:

“Ah! my Lily, charming, sweet—

Sure the god of love has led us

In this bowery place to meet;

Richest odors I will bring you

From the islands of the sea;

Aye, your beauty has enchained me—

Will you give your heart to me?”

With a touch exquisite, subtile,

Then he turned to his, her face;

In her blush of deeper crimson,

That she faltered, he could trace.

[188]

“I have sought you—will you trust me?

Faithful as the stars I’ll be—

With your fragrant breathings, answer,

Will you give your love to me?”

Frail the flower, tranced enraptured

By the lover’s soft caress,

To his tender wooing answered,

With impulsive rashness,—“yes.”

Then, exultant, zephyr gloried

In the treasure he had won—

Deftly stole her sparkling jewels,

Sharing with the rising sun.

Brushed the spangles from her tresses

With his playful finger tips,

Bolder grew with his caresses—

Gathering sweetness from her lips;

Robbed her beauty of the freshness

That was hers in early morn—

Left her ’neath the sun of noonday,

Burning like the gaze of scorn.

Drooping as in heat of censure

Evening found her in the dust,

Lifted her with tearful pity

From the blight of trampled trust;

[189]

But the tender flush of loving

From her face was blanched and gone,

Yet a beauty, born of trial,

Met the radiant glow of dawn.

Now for her the moon is shining

With a calm and holy light;

Dew-like gems of rarest beauty

Sparkles on her brow at night;

With her white face turned toward heaven

In her vestal robe she stands,

As a priestess, at an altar,

Lifting consecrated hands.

Chastest forms of beauty round her—

Stars that gem the vaulted blue

Join with her in silent warning,—

“Let thy love be pure and true—

Trusting e’en the black-browed storm-cloud,

With its leaping lightning-blaze,

Rather than the rover’s whisper,

Neath the moon’s enchanting gaze.”

[190]

To James Newton Mathews.[2]

Must write a sonnet!—ere the Poet’s rank,

With its devouring hopes, I dare to claim—

Ere I with them may seek a place or name—

Ere I may taste Castalia’s fount, where drank

The bards of eld, or find the flowery bank

Of clear Penneus, flashing back the flame

Of sunset fires. Thro’ moorlands, low and dank,

Alone, must grope, unlit by torch of fame.

Tho’ Poesy should stir my soul to song

That flowed like liquid tenderness along,

Or, wild and glad as leaping forest rills—

Tho’ Nature’s music thro’ my being thrills

And Imagery, with all her fairy throng,

My dreamy world of thought and vision fills,—

Alas! I’m doomed—this stanza is a line too long.

[2] “You must write a Sonnet to gain a Poet’s diploma.”—J. N. M.

[191]

The Great Hereafter.

Will the wrongs of life be righted,

Fruited there the hopes here blighted,

In the great hereafter?

Will the darkened lives be lighted

And dissevered souls united

In the great hereafter?

Will this wearing, wild commotion

Sink to rest and sweet emotion

Calm all strife hereafter?

Will love’s slighted, fond devotion

Reach beyond life’s tossing ocean

To the great hereafter?

Will the vows here lightly broken

With repentant tears be spoken

In the great hereafter?

The wounded one accept the token

Of the heart’s remorse unspoken

In the great hereafter?

Gladly from its idols turning

Will the soul forget its yearning

In the great hereafter?

[192]

Thro’ a quickened sense discerning

That the labors we’ve been spurning

Keep love’s holy incense burning

In the great hereafter?

Shall we find that hopes deceiving

Helped us on to grand achieving

In the great hereafter?

And be blest with glad receiving

What is now but faith, believing

In the great hereafter?

Will the soul that’s drunk the vial

Of a bitter self-denial

Feel the loss hereafter?

Or, thro’ sacrifice and trial,

Will it triumph o’er Belial,

In the great hereafter?

Will the bands by dogmas riven

Scathed and scarred by anger levin,

Make a peaceful, joyous Heaven

In the great hereafter?

For the good for which they’ve striven

Will their errors be forgiven

In the great hereafter?

[193]

There, with pomp, his work resuming

Will the bigot, still presuming,

God’s prerogative assuming

In the great hereafter,

Sit as judge, his brother dooming,

And with creed-lit torch reluming

Fires of torture “unconsuming,”

Through the great hereafter?

Will the Wrong, the Right assailing,

Wring from suffering helpless wailing

In the great hereafter?—

Conquered Good, with banners trailing,

Seeking streams for Hope’s regaling,

Be mirage-lured, till faint and failing,

Faith becomes a phantom, sailing

Through the great hereafter?

Or, shall our spirit eyes beholding

God’s mysterious plans unfolding

In the great hereafter,

See His strength the Right upholding

And his love the weak enfolding

In the great hereafter?

[194]

Struggling here with opposition,

Gives, perchance, the strong volition

Some may need for angel mission,

In the great hereafter;

And the ills of life’s condition,

To the tried may bring fruition

Of a joyous, sweet elysian

In the great hereafter.

What has seemed Fate’s unfair dealing,

May unveil, a joy revealing

In the great hereafter:

Though denying our appealing,

Made in agony of feeling,

God may still, with love’s own healing,

Higher destiny, be sealing

For the Great Hereafter.

[195]

Late October.

The night was black—the dismal rain

First dripped from sullen, inky clouds,

And then was dashed against the pane,

By winds that shrieked like demon crowds;

When, on the midnight’s ebon breast,

The storm, a moment, lulled to rest,

I heard this low, half stifled moan

With sorrow braided in the tone—

“Who cares for me? Who, who?”

The lurid lightning’s fitful glare

Lit all the far, horizon’s rim—

It showed the walnut, stripped and bare,

And clutching one great, leafless limb

Sat something weird, of dusky form;

Defenceless, in the pelting storm,

She faced alone that angry sky—

October’s voice seemed in the cry,

“Who cares for me? Who, Who?”

With rush and wrench an angered fiend

The loosened shutters clanged and swung,

[196]

His single stroke the grove had preened

And wide its deadened branches flung,

And from the wide, o’er-hanging eaves

He tore the crimson ivy leaves

And wildly whirled them on the blast—

The phantom murmured, as they passed,

“Who cares for me? Who, Who?”

The maples writhed as, tempest torn,

Their branches beat the gables high,

And, in the storm’s dark bosom borne,

Mad thunders bellowed thro’ the sky.

She spurned the spruce, with stately form,

Whose robes of green might shield and warm,

And yet, like sobbing on the gale,

Was monotoned that dismal wail,

“Who cares for me? Who, Who?”

Again the leaping lightnings glared,

The wind swept down the clinging vines,

In twisting gusts the trees were bared,

It rocked and tossed the rasping pines;

Unmoved, amid the tempest there,

And as the wraith of grim despair,

Still clutched the limb, that dusky form,

Repeating to the driving storm,

“Who cares for me? Who, who?”

[197]

The arbor gleamed with tangled vines,

Where, erstwhile, hung, ’mid emerald sheen,

The clustering wealth of unpressed wines;

And charms of scarlet, gold and green,

With opulence of fruit and grain,

Poured riches for October’s reign;

Now, conquered, robbed, usurped her throne,

Her sorrow welling in the moan,

“Who cares for me? Who, who?”

* * * * *

The morning sun is mocking cold—

The vanquished queen stands, pale, forlorn,

Her gauzy veil of dream and gold,

And royal robes, all rent and torn,

With bannered glories, trampled down,

To bring her victor’s sparkling crown.

She feebly smiles and passes on

To join the old October’s, gone—

November wails—“Who cares.”

[198]

On the Beach.

O, tell me, rolling, tossing billow,

Where thy place of rest may be!—

Who shall find, and who peruse them,

Were these lines consigned to thee!

Will the wild winds catch and carry,

’Mid the waves tumultuous roar,

Leaving them where golden glory

Flames along the sunset shore?

Pillowed on thy throbbing bosom

Where will this wee, waifling drift?

Will an eager hand stretch for it,

Thinking some strange tale to lift—

A record brief of direst peril

In a storm-wrecked sinking ship—

The moment when all hope had left them—

The tale ne’er told by human lip?

Or, will thy rolling, rocking cradle

Hold the casket unrevealed,

Till thy wrenching, prying fingers

Hath its secrets all unsealed?—

[199]

Dropping then the worthless trifle

Where wealth’s storm-wrecked treasures lie,

In thy mystic, wave-worn caverns,

Hidden aye, from mortal eye.

[200]

Hidden.

Oft the heart is full of weeping

When no tears escape the lids;

Bravely will stands guard o’er feeling

And the tell-tale flow forbids,

And for love of those who love us

Every sign of sorrow hides,

Counterfeiting joy and gladness

Where in secret, grief abides.

Though we try to gild with sunshine

Thorny paths we needs must tread,

Hiding, ’neath a show of courage,

That we go with shrinking dread—

Tho’ we hush the sob of mourning

For the strong true love we knew,

Yet affection’s sacred altar

With forget-me-nots we strew.

Every sentient heart holds hidden,

From the gaze of prying eyes,

All its sorrows. E’en its raptures

From such sharing it denies.

[201]

Love of some and dread of others

Shut the heart with bolts and bars;

We shrink to wound our loving dear ones—

We dread the sympathy that jars.

But, when night is darkly brooding

Over earth with raven wings,

Feeling may, with unseen fingers,

Sweep the spirit’s trembling strings.

Then, within its secret chamber,

May the heart’s own words be said—

There alone, with Love’s one taper,

All its bitter tears may shed.

[202]

My Robins Are Gone.

My robins are gone—

The last one has flown;

With a pang in my breast

I look into the nest

And know I’m forever alone.

The night will come in thro’ the crimsoning west,

Repeating that lesson of pain—

“The robin that once has flown out of the nest

Seeks never its shelter again.”

My robins are gone, etc.

O, glad was my heart with its fullness of love

When fondly I cared for them all,

But now I’m alone, in the shadowy grove,

And they are too far for recall.

My robins are gone, etc.

The world was so wide, and the skies were so blue,

They tempted my darlings away;

[203]

In the bright, dewy morning so buoyant they flew,

Nor dreamed of the noon-heat of day.

My robins are gone, etc.

I’ll stay by the lonely, embowered, old nest—

Some stars will beam down thro’ the night;

I’ll hush my heart’s cry with a “God knoweth best,”

And wait for the dawn of the light.

Tho’ my robins are gone,

Tho’ the last one has flown,

They’ll think of the tree

That is sheltering me,—

They’ll be to me ever my own.

[204]

Winterbloom.

Oh! beautiful winterbloom, why did you tarry?

O, why in Spring’s glory of budding and bloom,

Were hidden your jewels, wee, golden and starry,

To open them now, in November’s chill gloom?

The crocuses first heard the warm breezes calling,

The dandelions glowed in their emerald sea

And lilies, sun-kissed, in the lakelets were lolling—

All Flora’s enchantments were beckoning thee.

When June, in soft airs, swung her rose-freighted censer,

And dew gems were set with the buttercup’s gold—The

[205]

annual bloom, growing brighter and denser—

Why still, from the summer, your beauty withhold?

“When Spring in her gladness poured beauty around you,

And joy bells rang with most musical tone,

When opulent Summer with riches had crowned you,

My coming had then been unheeded, unknown.

Now flowers of springtime and summer have left you,

The winter’s foreclosure has shadowed the home—

Of the last clinging leaves the cold winds have bereft you—

As a friend in Adversity, now I am come.”

[206]

The Old Home.

The empty hammock, in the grove,

The playful breeze is swinging—

Wild birds, of varied note and plume,

In Babel jargon singing,

Come boldly near my silent door,

And e’en the woodland thrushes

Pour forth for me, their floods of song,

In sweet, melodious gushes.

And nearer still, the squirrels come,

Among the walnuts leaping,

And gather in their winter stores

Without the toil of reaping.—

The tennis plot is overgrown

With long, untrodden grasses—

Above it hangs, from unpruned boughs,

Their foliage wealth in masses.

The lichens lengthen on the trees—

They blotch, with gray, the fences

And prove decadence is of years,

Whatever our pretenses;

[207]

The storm-worn roof and gables all

Suggest inceptive mosses—

The ample house, with silent rooms,

Hope’s argosy and losses.

The shrubs that once bore stately bloom

Are now a bushy tangle,

Where tribes of beetles, thro’ the spring,

O’er blighted beauty wrangle;

And goldenrod, with kindly grace,

Hides, with her shining tassels,

Neglected spots, where once was built,

Young Fancy’s airy castles.

The bell, that called the dinner hour

With deep, revibrant clanging,

Is woven round with maple boughs,

Its stranded rope, down-hanging,

Has won a morning-glory bloom

To twine its frayed out fringes,

And trumpet vine creeps o’er the gate

To hide its broken hinges.

Now silence reigns where once was heard

The ring of childish laughter;—

They’ll come no more—“our little boys”—

In all the years hereafter;

[208]

Yet winds oft join with listless mood

To cheat me with the seeming—

A dimpled hand tugs at the latch—

But ah! ’twas only dreaming.

They’re out upon the field of Life

Where blades of strength are clashing,

Where true and false contend for aye

With thought’s bright spear-points flashing,

And we must hush love’s hunger-cry

And still the selfish yearning—

Must hide the heart’s fond worship, tho’

Its altar fires are burning.

But mother-love can make her strong

To check her own heart’s throbbing,

And bid them go with steady voice

While self’s in secret, sobbing;

Then she will whisper broken words

Alone with God in prayer,

And find that heavenly blessing falls

For every cross we bear.

[209]

Thought.

Backward, backward Thought has traveled,

Back into the dim unknown,

When the spheres in cosmic star-dust

Circled His eternal throne—

Back where cosmogonic darkness,

Wrought upon by Spirit light,

Yielded elemental centers

And protoplastic satellite.

Back, where first creative forces,

By impulsion from “The Cause,”

Start the universe in motion,

Guided by unerring laws—

Hurl the spheric fiery masses

Thro’ abysmal depths of space—

Meting out to each an orbit

With defined, unchanging place.

Thought, from thence, fares down the aeons

Thro’ the long chaotic night,

While His omnipresent agents

(Each a vast deific might)

[210]

Fashion to His will and purpose

Thro’ infinitude of spheres;

In our own group change evolving

Till Earth’s infant life appears—

Till creation felt Time’s fullness,

Surging thro’ unmeasured night,

That should rend the swathe of vapors

With command—“Let there be Light—”

Felt the rolling, tossing tumult

Of the fierce, internal sweep

When the thunder-toned volcanos

Lifted lands from shoreless deep.

Then, from formless void emerging,

Earth spread wide her fields and hills,

Woke the untrod glooms with music

Of her new-born leaping rills;—

Then the firmament, in grandeur,

Lit its unveiled depths of blue

With the moon in full-orbed beauty

And the young stars beaming through.

And the sunshine thrilled earth’s bosom,

Quickened germ-imprisoned life—

Soon the hillsides and the valleys

Were with floral beauty rife;—Forests

[211]

robed the mountain ranges,

Bound their sun-crooned brows with green,

While the mighty, sea-fed rivers

Rolled in majesty between.

* * * * *

Farther on in Life’s gradations

He who tuned the spheric roll,

Back in Nature’s barred Arcana,

Gave and clothed the human soul.

Hush, oh thought, nor dare to question

How creative laws adjust!

Canst thou comprehend Jehovah

Or the elemental “dust?”

Here, oh spirit, rest with child-faith;

Covet not forbidden things.

Life, the vainly sought for secret,

Proof, to us, of Godhood brings—

Of the Infinite, beyond us—

Far beyond the grasp of mind;—

Kneeling, trusting, here we worship

God—Jehovah, Undefined.

[212]

Columbus.

O’er the stormy, pathless seas,

Nobly proud, the Genoese

To a shadowed realm sailed;

With a will to brave and bear,

Sought he chance to do and dare,

’Mid the perils he must share

That Earth’s grandeur be unveiled.

Pilgrims sailed to lighted shores,

Hope and Home with open doors,

But thro’ dusky deeps, unknown,

Boldly this explorer plowed,

Facing danger’s darkling crowd

And Fate’s looming, gestant cloud,

From the waste of waters blown.

Heaven gave to him a soul

Finely fashioned to control

With a wondrous spirit might—

That should sweep of doubt and fear,

Broad and bright, a pathway clear—

By it lift a hemisphere

Into Freedom’s joyous light.

[213]

Purpose, daring were sublime—

His the crowning deeds of Time;

Life, for others’ gain, was spent

Opening Earth’s great treasure-doors—

Half a world with Bounty’s stores—

Mountains, rich in precious ores—

Caves with sparkling gems besprent.

Justice gave unquestioned claim

To the highest niche of Fame,

But what recompense was Spain’s?

She, thro’ craven sons of lust,

Honor stabbed, with feigned distrust—

Trampled his great soul in dust,

Scorned and loaded him with chains.

Now she comes to steal his bones:

Earth revile! In thunder tones

Tell the tale of wrong and shame;

Write this edict out in flame—

In the hemisphere he gave,

(Which he begged might be his grave)

She, of Greed, the wasted slave,

Shall have nevermore a name.

Transcriber’s note

Poem titles were originally printed in a stylized, “Gothic”-variety typeface (think New York Times masthead). Fonts which are a reasonable approximation of this, and which this ebook will display if you have them installed, include Old English Text MT, Chomsky, Cloister Black, Old London.

The following probable printer errors were corrected.

Page 47, “i ngering” changed to “lingering” (I’m lingering now)
Page 89, “Indnite” changed to “Infinite” (lighted with Infinite love)
Page 98, “temptest” changed to “tempest” (by sorrow’s tempest shaken)
Page 104, “Chrstians” changed to “Christians” (When Christians are one)
Page 149, “Queiscent” changed to “Quiescent” (Quiescent in that blest repose)
Page 178, “prsence” changed to “presence” (I knew that a presence had surely been there)
Page 191, “herafter” changed to “hereafter” (beyond life’s tossing ocean / To the great hereafter)
Page 197, “Wtih bannerd” changed to “With bannered” (With bannered glories)
Page 198, “rollng” changed to “rolling” (thy rolling, rocking cradle)
Page 200, “shrniking” changed to “shrinking” (That we go with shrinking dread)
Page 209, “satelite” changed to “satellite” (And protoplastic satellite)
Page 209, “unchangnig” changed to “unchanging” (With defined, unchanging place.)
Page 210, “Lfited” changed to “Lifted” (Lifted lands from shoreless deep.)
Page 211, “migthy” changed to “mighty” (mighty, sea-fed rivers)

Punctuation, hyphenation, and word spacing errors were amended without further note.