Chapter 4

There are lights in the far-gleaming Heaven That never will shine on our eyes; To mortals it may not be given To range those inviolate skies. The mind, whether praying or scorning, That tempts those dread secrets shall fail; But strive through the night till the morning, And mightily shalt thou prevail.

Crows at Washington

Slow flapping to the setting sun By twos and threes, in wavering rows. As twilight shadows dimly close, The crows fly over Washington.

Under the crimson sunset sky Virginian woodlands leafless lie, In wintry torpor bleak and dun. Through the rich vault of heaven, which shines Like a warmed opal in the sun, With wide advance in broken lines The crows fly over Washington.

Over the Capitol's white dome, Across the obelisk soaring bare To prick the clouds, they travel home, Content and weary, winnowing With dusky vans the golden air, Which hints the coming of the spring, Though winter whitens Washington.

The dim, deep air, the level ray Of dying sunlight on their plumes, Give them a beauty not their own; Their hoarse notes fail and faint away; A rustling murmur floating down Blends sweetly with the thickening glooms; They touch with grace the fading day, Slow flying over Washington.

I stand and watch with clouded eyes These dim battalions move along; Out of the distance memory cries Of days when life and hope were strong, When love was prompt and wit was gay; Even then, at evening, as to-day, I watched, while twilight hovered dim Over Potomac's curving rim, This selfsame flight of homing crows Blotting the sunset's fading rose, Above the roofs of Washington.

Remorse

Sad is the thought of sunniest days Of love and rapture perished, And shine through memory's tearful haze The eyes once fondliest cherished. Reproachful is the ghost of toys That charmed while life was wasted. But saddest is the thought of joys That never yet were tasted.

Sad is the vague and tender dream Of dead love's lingering kisses, To crushed hearts haloed by the gleam Of unreturning blisses; Deep mourns the soul in anguished pride For the pitiless death that won them,-- But the saddest wail is for lips that died With the virgin dew upon them.

Esse Quam Videri

The knightly legend of thy shield betrays The moral of thy life; a forecast wise, And that large honor that deceit defies, Inspired thy fathers in the elder days, Who decked thy scutcheon with that sturdy phrase, _To be rather than seem_. As eve's red skies Surpass the morning's rosy prophecies, Thy life to that proud boast its answer pays. Scorning thy faith and purpose to defend The ever-mutable multitude at last Will hail the power they did not comprehend,-- Thy fame will broaden through the centuries; As, storm and billowy tumult overpast, The moon rules calmly o'er the conquered seas.

When the Boys Come Home

There's a happy time coming, When the boys come home. There's a glorious day coming, When the boys come home. We will end the dreadful story Of this treason dark and gory In a sunburst of glory, When the boys come home.

The day will seem brighter When the boys come home, For our hearts will be lighter When the boys come home. Wives and sweethearts will press them In their arms and caress them, And pray God to bless them, When the boys come home.

The thinned ranks will be proudest When the boys come home, And their cheer will ring the loudest When the boys come home. The full ranks will be shattered, And the bright arms will be battered, And the battle-standards tattered, When the boys come home.

Their bayonets may be rusty, When the boys come home, And their uniforms dusty, When the boys come home. But all shall see the traces Of battle's royal graces, In the brown and bearded faces, When the boys come home.

Our love shall go to meet them, When the boys come home, To bless them and to greet them, When the boys come home; And the fame of their endeavor Time and change shall not dissever From the nation's heart forever, When the boys come home.

Lèse-Amour

How well my heart remembers Beside these camp-fire embers The eyes that smiled so far away,-- The joy that was November's.

Her voice to laughter moving, So merrily reproving,-- We wandered through the autumn woods, And neither thought of loving.

The hills with light were glowing, The waves in joy were flowing,-- It was not to the clouded sun The day's delight was owing.

Though through the brown leaves straying, Our lives seemed gone a-Maying; We knew not Love was with us there, No look nor tone betraying.

How unbelief still misses The best of being's blisses! Our parting saw the first and last Of love's imagined kisses.

Now 'mid these scenes the drearest I dream of her, the dearest,-- Whose eyes outshine the Southern stars, So far, and yet the nearest.

And Love, so gayly taunted, Who died, no welcome granted, Comes to me now, a pallid ghost, By whom my life is haunted.

With bonds I may not sever, He binds my heart forever, And leads me where we murdered him,-- The Hill beside the River.

CAMP SHAW, FLORIDA, February, 1864.

Northward

Under the high unclouded sun That makes the ship and shadow one, I sail away as from the fort Booms sullenly the noonday gun.

The odorous airs blow thin and fine, The sparkling waves like emeralds shine, The lustre of the coral reefs Gleams whitely through the tepid brine.

And glitters o'er the liquid miles The jewelled ring of verdant isles, Where generous Nature holds her court Of ripened bloom and sunny smiles.

Encinctured by the faithful seas Inviolate gardens load the breeze, Where flaunt like giant-warders' plumes The pennants of the cocoa-trees.

Enthroned in light and bathed in balm, In lonely majesty the Palm Blesses the isles with waving hands,-- High-Priest of the eternal Calm.

Yet Northward with an equal mind I steer my course, and leave behind The rapture of the Southern skies,-- The wooing of the Southern wind.

For here o'er Nature's wanton bloom Falls far and near the shade of gloom, Cast from the hovering vulture-wings Of one dark thought of woe and doom.

I know that in the snow-white pines The brave Norse fire of freedom shines, And fain for this I leave the land Where endless summer pranks the vines.

O strong, free North, so wise and brave! O South, too lovely for a slave! Why read ye not the changeless truth,-- The free can conquer but to save?

May God upon these shining sands Send Love and Victory clasping hands, And Freedom's banners wave in peace Forever o'er the rescued lands!

And here, in that triumphant hour, Shall yielding Beauty wed with Power; And blushing earth and smiling sea In dalliance deck the bridal bower.

KEY WEST, 1864.

In the Firelight

My dear wife sits beside the fire With folded hands and dreaming eyes, Watching the restless flames aspire, And wrapped in thralling memories. I mark the fitful firelight fling Its warm caresses on her brow, And kiss her hands' unmelting snow, And glisten on her wedding-ring.

The proud free head that crowns so well The neck superb, whose outlines glide Into the bosom's perfect swell Soft-billowed by its peaceful tide, The cheek's faint flush, the lip's red glow, The gracious charm her beauty wears, Fill my fond eyes with tender tears As in the days of long ago.

Days long ago, when in her eyes The only heaven I cared for lay, When from our thoughtless Paradise All care and toil dwelt far away; When Hope in wayward fancies throve, And rioted in secret sweets, Beguiled by Passion's dear deceits,-- The mysteries of maiden love.

One year had passed since first my sight Was gladdened by her girlish charms, When on a rapturous summer night I clasped her in possessing arms. And now ten years have rolled away, And left such blessings as their dower, I owe her tenfold at this hour The love that lit our wedding-day.

For now, vague-hovering o'er her form, My fancy sees, by love refined, A warmer and a dearer charm By wedlock's mystic hands intwined,-- golden coil of wifely cares That years have forged, the loving joy That guards the curly-headed boy Asleep an hour ago up stairs.

A fair young mother, pure as fair, A matron heart and virgin soul! The flickering light that crowns her hair Seems like a saintly aureole. A tender sense upon me falls That joy unmerited is mine, And in this pleasant twilight shine My perfect bliss myself appalls.

Come back! my darling, strayed so far Into the realm of fantasy,-- Let thy dear face shine like a star In love-light beaming over me. My melting soul is jealous, sweet, Of thy long silence' drear eclipse, O kiss me back with living lips To life, love, lying at thy feet!

In a Graveyard

In the dewy depths of the graveyard I lie in the tangled grass, And watch, in the sea of azure, The white cloud-islands pass.

The birds in the rustling branches Sing gayly overhead; Gray stones like sentinel spectres Are guarding the silent dead.

The early flowers sleep shaded In the cool green noonday glooms; The broken light falls shuddering On the cold white face of the tombs,

Without, the world is smiling In the infinite love of God, But the sunlight fails and falters When it falls on the churchyard sod.

On me the joyous rapture Of a heart's first love is shed, But it falls on my heart as coldly As sunlight on the dead.

The Prairie

The skies are blue above my head, The prairie green below, And flickering o'er the tufted grass The shifting shadows go, Vague-sailing, where the feathery clouds Fleck white the tranquil skies, Black javelins darting where aloft The whirring pheasant flies.

A glimmering plain in drowsy trance The dim horizon bounds, Where all the air is resonant With sleepy summer sounds, The life that sings among the flowers, The lisping of the breeze, The hot cicala's sultry cry, The murmurous dream of bees.

The butterfly--a flying flower-- Wheels swift in flashing rings, And flutters round his quiet kin, With brave flame-mottled wings. The wild Pinks burst in crimson fire, The Phlox' bright clusters shine, And Prairie-Cups are swinging free To spill their airy wine.

And lavishly beneath the sun, In liberal splendor rolled, The Fennel fills the dipping plain With floods of flowery gold; And widely weaves the Iron-Weed A woof of purple dyes Where Autumn's royal feet may tread When bankrupt Summer flies.

In verdurous tumult far away The prairie-billows gleam, Upon their crests in blessing rests The noontide's gracious beam. Low quivering vapors steaming dim The level splendors break Where languid Lilies deck the rim Of some land-circled lake.

Far in the East like low-hung clouds The waving woodlands lie; Far in the West the glowing plain Melts warmly in the sky. No accent wounds the reverent air, No footprint dints the sod,-- Lone in the light the prairie lies, Rapt in a dream of God

ILLINOIS, 1858.

Centennial

A hundred times the bells of Brown Have rung to sleep the idle summers, And still to-day clangs clamoring down A greeting to the welcome comers.

And far, like waves of morning, pours Her call, in airy ripples breaking, And wanders to the farthest shores, Her children's drowsy hearts awaking.

The wild vibration floats along, O'er heart-strings tense its magic plying, And wakes in every breast its song Of love and gratitude undying.

My heart to meet the summons leaps At limit of its straining tether, Where the fresh western sunlight steeps In golden flame the prairie heather.

And others, happier, rise and fare To pass within the hallowed portal, And see the glory shining there Shrined in her steadfast eyes immortal.

What though their eyes be dim and dull, Their heads be white in reverend blossom; Our mother's smile is beautiful As when she bore them on her bosom!

Her heavenly forehead bears no line Of Time's iconoclastic fingers, But o'er her form the grace divine Of deathless youth and wisdom lingers.

We fade and pass, grow faint and old, Till youth and joy and hope are banished, And still her beauty seems to fold The sum of all the glory vanished.

As while Tithonus faltered on The threshold of the Olympian dawnings, Aurora's front eternal shone With lustre of the myriad mornings.

So joys that slip like dead leaves down, And hopes burnt out that die in ashes, Rise restless from their graves to crown Our mother's brow with fadeless flashes.

And lives wrapped in tradition's mist These honored halls to-day are haunting, And lips by lips long withered kissed The sagas of the past are chanting.

Scornful of absence' envious bar BROWN smiles upon the mystic meeting Of those her sons, who, sundered far, In brotherhood of heart are greeting;

Her wayward children wandering on Where setting stars are lowly burning, But still in worship toward the dawn That gilds their souls' dear Mecca turning;

Or those who, armed for God's own fight, Stand by his word through fire and slaughter. Or bear our banner's starry light Far-flashing through the Gulf's blue water.

For where one strikes for light and truth The right to aid, the wrong redressing, The mother of his spirit's youth Sheds o'er his soul her silent blessing.

She gained her crown a gem of flame When KNEASS fell dead in victory gory; New splendor blazed upon her name When IVES' young life went out in glory!

Thus bright forever may she keep Her fires of tolerant Freedom burning, Till War's red eyes are charmed to sleep And bells ring home the boys returning.

And may she shed her radiant truth In largess on ingenuous comers, And hold the bloom of gracious youth Through many a hundred tranquil summers!

A Winter Night

The winter wind is raving fierce and shrill And chides with angry moan the frosty skies, The white stars gaze with sleepless Gorgon eyes That freeze the earth in terror fixed and still We reck not of the wild night's gloom and chill, Housed from its rage, dear friend; and fancy flies, Lured by the hand of beckoning memories, Back to those summer evenings on the hill Where we together watched the sun go down Beyond the gold-washed uplands, while his fires Touched into glittering life the vanes and spires Piercing the purpling mists that veiled the town. The wintry night thy voice and eyes beguile, Till wake the sleeping summers in thy smile.

Student-Song

When Youth's warm heart beats high, my friend, And Youth's blue sky is bright, And shines in Youth's clear eye, my friend, Love's early dawning light, Let the free soul spurn care's control, And while the glad days shine, We'll use their beams for Youth's gay dreams Of Love and Song and Wine.

Let not the bigot's frown, my friend, O'ercast thy brow with gloom, For Autumn's sober brown, my friend, Shall follow Summer's bloom. Let smiles and sighs and loving eyes In changeful beauty shine, And shed their beams on Youth's gay dreams Of Love and Song and Wine.

For in the weary years, my friend, That stretched before us lie, There'll be enough of tears, my friend, To dim the brightest eye. So let them wait, and laugh at fate, While Youth's sweet moments shine,-- Till memory gleams with golden dreams Of Love and Song and Wine.

How It Happened

I pray you, pardon me, Elsie, And smile that frown away That dims the light of your lovely face As a thunder-cloud the day. I really could not help it,-- Before I thought, 't was done,-- And those great gray eyes flashed bright and cold, Like an icicle in the sun.

I was thinking of the summers When we were boys and girls, And wandered in the blossoming woods, And the gay winds romped with your curls. And you seemed to me the same little girl I kissed in the alder-path, I kissed the little girl's lips, and alas! I have roused a woman's wrath.

There is not so much to pardon,-- For why were your lips so red? The blond hair fell in a shower of gold From the proud, provoking head. And the beauty that flashed from the splendid eyes, And played round the tender mouth, Rushed over my soul like a warm sweet wind That blows from the fragrant south.

And where, after all, is the harm done? I believe we were made to be gay, And all of youth not given to love Is vainly squandered away. And strewn through life's low labors, Like gold in the desert sands, Are love's swift kisses and sighs and vows And the clasp of clinging hands.

And when you are old and lonely, In Memory's magic shine You will see on your thin and wasting hands, Like gems, these kisses of mine. And when you muse at evening At the sound of some vanished name, The ghost of my kisses shall touch your lips And kindle your heart to flame.

God's Vengeance

Saith the Lord, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay," saith the Lord; Ours be the anger divine, Lit by the flash of his word.

How shall his vengeance be done? How, when his purpose is clear? Must he come down from his throne? Hath he no instruments here?

Sleep not in imbecile trust Waiting for God to begin, While, growing strong in the dust, Rests the bruised serpent of sin.

Right and Wrong,--both cannot live Death-grappled. Which shall we see? Strike! only Justice can give Safety to all that shall be.

Shame! to stand paltering thus, Tricked by the balancing odds; Strike! God is waiting for us! Strike! for the vengeance is God's.

Too Late

Had we but met in other days, Had we but loved in other ways, Another light and hope had shone On your life and my own.

In sweet but hopeless reveries I fancy how your wistful eyes Had saved me, had I known their power In fate's imperious hour;

How loving you, beloved of God, And following you, the path I trod Had led me, through your love and prayers. To God's love unawares:

And how our beings joined as one Had passed through checkered shade and sun, Until the earth our lives had given, With little change, to heaven.

God knows why this was not to be. You bloomed from childhood far from me, The sunshine of the favored place That knew your youth and grace.

And when your eyes, so fair and free, In fearless beauty beamed on me, I knew the fatal die was thrown, My choice in life was gone.

And still with wild and tender art Your child-love touched my torpid heart, Gilding the blackness where it fell, Like sunlight over hell.

In vain, in vain! my choice was gone! Better to struggle on alone Than blot your pure life's blameless shine With cloudy stains of mine.

A vague regret, a troubled prayer, And then the future vast and fair Will tempt your young and eager eyes With all its glad surprise.

And I shall watch you, safe and far, As some late traveller eyes a star Wheeling beyond his desert sands To gladden happier lands.

Love's Doubt

'Tis love that blinds my heart and eyes,-- I sometimes say in doubting dreams,-- The face that near me perfect seems Cold Memory paints in fainter dyes.

'T was but love's dazzled eyes--I say-- That made her seem so strangely bright; The face I worshipped yesternight, I dread to meet it changed to-day.

As, when dies out some song's refrain, And leaves your eyes in happy tears, Awake the same fond idle fears,-- It cannot sound so sweet again.

You wait and say with vague annoy, "It will not sound so sweet again," Until comes back the wild refrain That floods your soul with treble joy.

So when I see my love again Fades the unquiet doubt away, While shines her beauty like the day Over my happy heart and brain.

And in that face I see no more The fancied faults I idly dreamed, But all the charms that fairest seemed, I find them, fairer than before.

Lagrimas

God send me tears! Loose the fierce band that binds my tired brain, Give me the melting heart of other years, And let me weep again!

Before me pass The shapes of things inexorably true. Gone is the sparkle of transforming dew From every blade of grass.

In life's high noon Aimless I stand, my promised task undone, And raise my hot eyes to the angry sun That will go down too soon.

Turned into gall Are the sweet joys of childhood's sunny reign; And memory is a torture, love a chain That binds my life in thrall.

And childhood's pain Could to me now the purest rapture yield; I pray for tears as in his parching field The husbandman for rain.

We pray in vain! The sullen sky flings down its blaze of brass; The joys of life all scorched and withering pass; I shall not weep again.

On the Bluff

O grandly flowing River! O silver-gliding River! Thy springing willows shiver In the sunset as of old; They shiver in the silence Of the willow-whitened islands, While the sun-bars and the sand-bars Fill air and wave with gold.

O gay, oblivious River! O sunset-kindled River! Do you remember ever The eyes and skies so blue On a summer day that shone here, When we were all alone here, And the blue eyes were too wise To speak the love they knew?

O stern impassive River! O still unanswering River! The shivering willows quiver As the night-winds moan and rave. From the past a voice is calling, From heaven a star is falling, And dew swells in the bluebells Above her hillside grave.

Una

In the whole wide world there was but one, Others for others, but she was mine, The one fair woman beneath the sun.

From her gold-flax curls' most marvellous shine Down to the lithe and delicate feet There was not a curve nor a waving line

But moved in a harmony firm and sweet With all of passion my life could know. By knowledge perfect and faith complete

I was bound to her,--as the planets go Adoring around their central star, Free, but united for weal or woe.

She was so near and Heaven so far-- She grew my heaven and law and fate Rounding my life with a mystic bar

No thought beyond could violate. Our love to fulness in silence nursed Grew calm as morning, when through the gate

Of the glimmering East the sun has burst, With his hot life filling the waiting air. She kissed me once,--that last and first

Of her maiden kisses was placid as prayer. Against all comers I sat with lance In rest, and, drunk with my joy, I sware

Defiance and scorn to the world's worst chance. In vain! for soon unhorsed I lay At the feet of the strong god Circumstance--

And never again shall break the day, And never again shall fall the night That shall light me, or shield me, on my way

To the presence of my sad soul's delight. Her dead love comes like a passionate ghost To mourn the Body it held so light,

And Fate, like a hound with a purpose lost, Goes round bewildered with shame and fright.

Through the long days and years What will my loved one be, Parted from me? Through the long days and years.

Always as then she was Loveliest, brightest, best, Blessing and blest,-- Always as then she was.

Never on earth again Shall I before her stand, Touch lip or hand,-- Never on earth again.

But while my darling lives Peaceful I journey on, Not quite alone, Not while my darling lives.

A Phylactery

Wise men I hold those rakes of old Who, as we read in antique story, When lyres were struck and wine was poured, Set the white Death's Head on the board-- Memento mori.

Love well! love truly! and love fast! True love evades the dilatory. Life's bloom flares like a meteor past; A joy so dazzling cannot last-- Memento mori.

Stop not to pluck the leaves of bay That greenly deck the path of glory, The wreath will wither if you stay, So pass along your earnest way-- Memento mori.

Hear but not heed, though wild and shrill, The cries of faction transitory; Cleave to _your_ good, eschew _your_ ill, A Hundred Years and all is still-- Memento mori.