Chapter 2

A flash in crystal waters cold-- O dream in silver, red, and gold-- The speckled trout above the gravel Lies by the rock where the stream is rolled!

Grasshoppers chirp and crickets chir, The rich-tagged alders nod and pur, The kine bells drowse the distant pasture,-- All nature waits for the coming stir.

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This golden-browed September land Is rich of heart and free of hand; Fresh from the mint of God, and taintless, Are flung her guineas of gold, like sand.

Here where the road winds round the hill, And down beside the tidal mill, Marsh goldenrod and its plumed sister Their spangled ore in a largess spill.

The Sabbath sabbatize, said He,-- This gold is sacred unto me,-- Rich gift of God unknown of mammon, Kingdom of Heaven by the roadside, free!

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I keep one picture in my heart, To be of life a cherished part,-- A picture waiting yet its canvas From master hand of divinest art:

A wan blind man and Christ sun-brown, Hand in His hand, are walking down The thronged street into the open Beyond the walls of Bethsaida town.

Light of the world with night in kiss! Pathetic scene--a scene of bliss! The rayless eyes are touched to healing! Was ever picture so sweet as this?

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As turns my heart its crimson leaves, And life's own diary freshly weaves, I see the pages glow intenser, A wondrous story my bosom heaves.

Beneath the careless lines there writ Appear in beauty, clear, sunlit, Mysterious Love's own tender story, How this poor heart to His own was knit.

Mine, mine, while moons the waters move! Mine, while Heaven lasts, and Love is Love! Methinks He hid this sweet love favor That I might find it--my treasure-trove.

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Sure in this realm of Sense and Time Passes an endless pantomime Of life and thought, whose tone and color A shadow is of a heavenly prime.

The rose unfolds from the unseen; It was not to the senses keen; 'Tis broken to the vision softly, A crown of crowns of the summer's green.

In hushed and breathless Beauty's name, From out the veiled deeps as flame It comes, a thing of sense, of spirit, And passeth out by the way it came.

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All day an ashen light serene Has brooded o'er this longed-for scene, Its tints and damask flush all hiding, As if obscured by a dusky screen.

Here when a child I used to lie For hours, and watch the clouds go by, See the black shadows climb the mountain Or safely ride o'er the billowy rye.

O Beauty, shy as sylvan run, Demure as some sweet-hooded nun, And wrapt about with grey of gloaming, Unveil thy face to the sinking sun.

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Never before has my ear heard A sweeter music, passion stirred, Nor depth and purity so azurn, Of breathing dawn and of morning bird.

She comes, in heyday of her blood, Over the groves and waiting flood! The air is vital with her presence, And banners wave from the woodbine's bud.

AEolian sylphs touch soft their lutes, Brooks tinkle, tinkle past the roots, As Beauty, hidden in the cover, Fingers the stops of her melting flutes.

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Dimly beheld, thou excellent, Ideal of grace! 'tis ravishment To breathe thy atmosphere, O Beauty, Whene'er thou stirr'st in thy greening tent.

I cannot see thee as thou art, Nor trace thy goings but in part; O dearer thus, like starry music Half heard, that thrills with its string my heart.

If thou shouldst part thy sheeny veil And strike thy fires, my heart would quail Beneath the eye of naked glory, The molten sun, as the moon, be pale.

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Fair as the light on fire-tipt hills, From out her hollow hand she spills The pale and powdery moonbeams, sifting O'er sleeping farms and the winking rills.

The silvered leaves smile in their sleep; Headlands their hoary watches keep; The glimmering ships the moonglade furrow-- The path where beauty fore-walks the deep.

And now the powdery beam is thrown On marguerite and pearl moonstone, On fluffy bird with wing aweary,-- Soft, dreaming child! 'tis her silver blown.

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With lathe of viewless hyaline, She shapes the shell and scale and fin, Dropping unseen her pearls of moonlight, And blushes all as her kith and kin.

Distaff of light is in her hand, From which she spins the lily, and The sendal robes of field and forest, With dewy odors in every strand.

And from her snow-white palette's dyes She paints the peacock's hundred eyes, The robin's egg, the apple blossom, And domes the world with her sapphire skies.

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Her steps fall sweet as summer rain, And lull to dream the thoughts of pain,-- O glowing grass, O violet skyey, Ye hint of something of fairer grain!

She outruns sympathy of crowds; Her dwelling is above the clouds; She stoops to kiss the rose to crimson-- Her face no featureless mask enshrouds.

Her chatelaine's of amber fine; No hue of coming autumn's wine But she outpours from tawny beaker, And fills each grape of the swelling vine.

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Celestial sweetness swift outstrips The light unleashed of its eclipse!-- A fire of dew burns in her bosom, And steady glows through her eyes and lips.

She holds fair forms of ferns and seeds, Lichens and fruits and burnished reeds, And pours, in wake of mellow harvest, Splendors of flame on the leaves and weeds.

O give, give me my own of that Which sweeps and circles like the bat Around me as I walk in ether, O fair Divine, at whose feet I've sat!

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Unnumbered traits shine in thy face, Harmonious blent in Time and Space; Ideal of form, of tone, of color, Of thought, emotion, and deed, O Grace!

Ay me! I speak familiar words. Thou art a presence of my Lord's! Spirit of splendor, thou, O Beauty, That lights His brow, and that crowns and girds.

O Christ, Thou bright Heaven's Morning Star, In whom all live and move and are, Thou Chiefest, altogether lovely, Beauty in Time is Thy avatar!

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The scarlet arch of evening fills Heights o'er the vapor-laden hills With brilliant samite robes that flutter Something beneath that my spirit thrills.

O Infinite, and Whom I bless! Glow of embodied perfectness! O Sea of supersensuous Being, Whose tides the unutterable express!

(This, this it was that Plato saw On back of Heaven!)--Let self withdraw From this o'ermastering light and splendor, These rolling waves of a trembling awe!

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This tiny life, with exquisite wings, Is one with all earth's moving things; The light that burns in great Arcturus Is tinct with gold of our wedding rings.

In every fibre, every jot, The universe is one, I wot Great God, Thou'rt One, and we Thy offspring Can see some angles of Thy wide thought.

Thy footprints mark the ageless years, Thy hand authenticates the spheres; The voice of Time, the hush eternal, One anthem sound in Thy listening ears.

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Philosophy doth dig and draw; Instinct translateth into law,-- The universe in one God dwelling, The poet's vision forekenned with awe.

He is a seer in night of Time, Casting red foregleams in his rhyme, Of rising stars on man's horizon; Herald of truth of a choral clime,--

Impassioned truth from inward deeps, That oft like lightning sudden leaps From darkness, blazing a far pathway To hills of God, which the sunlight steeps.

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The infinite in grand repose Moves under life's tempestuous throes, As move the waters deep of ocean Far 'neath the ship when the tempest blows.

The cloud-rack streams across the sky, The breaking billows threaten high; These are Time's shadows on the voyage, And bring the infinite Presence nigh.

All sunlit seas in joyous dance Might show life but as happy chance, Nor hint of One who saves divinely,-- My faith is linked with deliverance.

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Two lives made one, the man and wife (A mystic thing to world of strife), Serenity of oneness, wholeness, Repose of love as the law of life!

Uncaught by skill of painter's art, There glows a radiance of the heart In which the naked truth, as sculpture, Is seen in colorless calm apart,--

A luminous calm of spiritual light, Dissolving drop serene of sight Oft gathering o'er the eye of reason, And robing day in the folds of night.

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The mirrored silence of this pool Reveals a world of noiseless rule. It soothes and rests my fevered spirit-- A bath of balm of the deeps, and cool.

Still move the clouds, still wheel the skies, The aspiring tree no longer sighs,-- Fair thoughts of God, full-clothed in Heaven, All calm and beautiful in Love's eyes!

Glassed in the light of Heaven's repose, He wears perfection, like a rose! Impatient heart, be still! Thou seest He brings His work to a perfect close.

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Over the brow of lofty scar Quivers the light of evening star, And throws within the gorge's gloaming A kiss of beams on the brook afar.

Quivers the stream with strange delight Through all the murmuring hours of night, And to the pale moss tells its story, And lichens fumbling far up the height.

And in its dusk, for aye the brook To cliffy covert, caverned nook, Brattles its sweet and starry secret-- Foregleam of day and an open look!

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Look now! The crested waters sleep; White stars their emerald twilight keep Above the tryst of pensile glories That kiss to purple-and-gold the deep.

Blossoms the rose red as its name; The trees aspire to heaven, like flame; Articulate the gold-eyed songsters; While angels lean from their place of fame.

O sleep, sleep now, sleep silverly, Radiant, divine, deep-bosomed sea! Thy cradle rocks to skyey breathings, Bright fall Love's shadows on you and me.

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How swift soft-feathered Time sails on Its skyward flight, nor stays to con The gulfs of space it wingeth over,-- Mere pools that hint of a shoreless yon!

Sunsets and dawns, mirage, the sea, Foreshadow Nature's fixed decree, While steady rolls the round of seasons,-- The soul foreknows its eternity.

From spiritual heights beyond the spheres, My ear elusive music hears; In stressful hours it falls and hovers, And life is lift to AEonian years.

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My quickened sense can only plod. Imagination waves its rod, My spirit burns with lightning splendor, Emotive faith tastes the bread of God.

As moves the wind on sightless wings, Nor shadow o'er the landscape flings, While seas to chafe of foam are beaten, And plectrum sweeps all the forest strings;

So through the world doth Spirit move, And presence by His working prove,-- A mystery of might and music, A lonelihood of eternal love.

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What Nature mirrors and reveals-- The purblind vision it unseals To sight of awesome Presence holy, That chastens sore ere He soothes and heals,--

The reign of law, with ethic rule E'en in the breast of idle fool, (As moon and stars are heavenly pictured Within the breast of a noisome pool)--

Herein is claim of Nature's worth. Though I forget the forms of earth, Of gilded cloud and circling planet, I know His fire lives within their girth.

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Green tracery of fern to rust; The shouldering hills to level dust,-- This is the law of rhythmic nature, The ebb and flow of its may and must.

I hear the wind-harp's wilding tones Sobbing a requiem o'er their bones; "The golden-globed skies shall perish," The harper harps as he wails and moans.

Wild heart, within thy ruby vault Is flashed a purpose, free of fault From great High Priest's own breast-plate splendid,-- E'en deathless life out of death's assault.

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What, though the sea-shell cheats the ear, And from my blood, free-coursing near, Unspheres the far and murmurous phantom Of breaking seas that I faintly hear?

Of life beyond there come to me Hints truer than shell's phantom sea,-- I brood all space, the past, the present, And timeless realms of eternity!

The rose-lipt thing has lost its pearl,-- Death's chamber is its polished whorl; I am a life, and feel of Being No phantom touch, but the vital swirl.

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Says one who with the sad condoles: "No delicate delight unrolls But soon o'er it is flung a shadow." O feeblest folly of shallow souls!

A foolishness all overworn, Yet deadly as the frost of scorn! The serious mind is born of sorrow; On Love's brow rested a crown of thorn.

The shadowland is rift with bright-- It did the deed of deeds incite! The Son of Man, Jehovah's Servant, Through shadows passed to His crown of light.

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There ever wakes an evil wraith To test the courage of my faith, As life's dark passages are thridded,-- "Alone! Alone!" are the words it saith.

Ah, no! the wraith's an angel one Whose face is always to the sun, A guardian of the heart's temptations, That saves by fear ere the course be run.

'Tis Father love each round of day That shadows in a twilight grey, Or with Love's raven pinion covers, To tempt His child from itself away.

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Far up the brook, beyond the lin, I hear the impatient bluejay's din, While in the browning beech, nut-laden, The chipmunk gathers his harvest in.

(Of all earth's trees exceeding fair, Thee have I loved beyond compare, Most human beech! and felt thy spirit Tremble to mine in the dusky air.)

The year is rounding up its task, And kingly gives to all that ask; Ay, soon 'twill move in pomp so royal The world shall seem, but a heavenly mask!

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The full ripe year, these maple hills! The pure October weather fills Earth's veins so full of glowing crimson That every leaf is ablush, and thrills.

An expectation holds the days, And angel sunbeams throng the ways; The luminous skies grow close and tender, And over all is a brooding haze.

'Tis summer's apotheosis In flame of color, burning kiss, As dew dies in the arms of sunlight-- A world of beauty dissolved in bliss.

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I dreamed I drew my parting breath, And fell, in sinking swoon of death, To gulfs of utter night all chilly, While woven hands held me close beneath.

And then, as thousand lights on shore, The radiant forms I'd known before; And growing sound of kindly voices, And flood of light through an open door.

And, lo, at stern and prow there stands, Close-veiled, an angel winged!--the sands Beneath the shallop's keel wake music; Folded am I by the pierced hands!

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"The world's a train at speeding rate; An iron track its wheels await; We're all on board--beyond is darkness, For God is only a name for Fate."

Thus mouths and blasphemes round about An age in bondage to its doubt. "Pray!" says the soul, and God, and Christ--and Freedom affirm with a ringing shout

"Believe in God, believe in Me," Is freedom's voice like sounding sea, Its grand AMEN from Him that liveth And holds of this, and all worlds, the key.

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Hope's clear blue eye is open wide, And hath fair visions that abide; The white light of imagination Glows on her brows as a heavenly bride.

Her face is lift to veiled things, To which she mounts as if with wings; The tents of night, the sable future, Are light as day with the song she sings.

As lithe as breadths of silvery rye When wrestling winds its footing try, The spirit that with hope is gleaming; It must look up to the bending sky.

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I see that power is not in art, Nor name nor place essential part Of life's reality and glory; The strength of life is the health of heart.

If man but lived the pure white truth, As lives the lily tender ruth, The earth were Paradise to-morrow, The Christ, unveiled, would be here in sooth.

The worldly wise, he does not heed,-- What love sees true is true indeed! Immortal blooms this hardy blossom, And deathless fruits in a deathless creed.

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Unveiled as kinsman, Love did seek His wandering brethren, Jew and Greek. (That God made man in His own image Did human life of our God fore-speak).

Nor mask nor vesture was His mien By man and angels wistly seen, Nor filmy veil, nor apparition, God's human life as the Nazarene.

A man the Christ of God earth trod, And showed to man, and worlds abroad, The holy, good, and sorrowing Father, Atoning love, and the heart of God.

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O glorious light! Thy limpid wave Doth floor of living being pave, And life from out the caves of darkness Waft to His sheltering architrave.

From void of night's lone pall of jet, Yellow and red and violet Into a quivering beam were woven,-- His flying looms are aweaving yet.

If man and beast and tree and flower Unweave not Love's rich beauteous dower, All Danae again earth darkles Beneath His ceaseless and golden shower.

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Hail, Mary, honored of the race! Light of the Home, its fount of grace, Is woman--sister, wife, and mother-- Circling a towered and a heavenly place.

She sorrowed oft for Love's dear sake, She did the alabaster break; Like Him she knows of pain and anguish, And doth for life of death's cup partake.

Hope of the race! since from Home's throne (Sweet Love's own gift, and His alone,) She giveth laws to coming ages-- Builder from cope to foundation stone!

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Frail Lucia of a mutual love! Fair little winged cooing dove, Thou'st fluttered down from thy far dovecote, Awhile to nestle in earth's sweet grove.

Would it were sweeter, child, for thee-- Sweet as the silver-breaking sea (When Indian summer broods upon it) Doth flute and fife to the golden tree!

Thine angel listens for thy breath Whene'er he hears the wings of death, Looks in the Father's face and prayeth-- "For earth's sake spare her," he softly saith.

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O patriot, ruler, leader great, Master of labor, builder of state, Man of the mart, and king of commerce, His lips have spoken--why longer wait?

One brotherhood, one family, And love its great economy! The law of might is rule of evil--- The ethic lives in man's spirit free.

No borrowed laws of clay, nor brute, Can e'er the freeman's spirit suit! He gave him choice!--Hark! how he thunders! Through human strife--nor is deaf nor mute!

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The sword and spear and savage knife, Wherewith the world is dowered of strife, Are but as flotsam on the current Of purpose vast of the Lord of Life.

His rising winds and swelling surge, And underflowing tidal-urge, Shall grind to dust these lethal spirits And chant in triumph their sounding dirge.

Break way, break way, Fell Evil, cease! O soldiers of the King's increase! O happy homes! O happy peoples! O blessed wings of the ships of peace!

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Love's inspirations of the lyre Upsway the heart's intense desire, And rulership and kingdoms noble Are seen within the revealing fire.

The frost of selfish blood gives place To breath of life, and salt of grace; New armor takes the cloistered spirit, And man becomes of a higher race.

Hark! 'Tis an angel's throbbing wing! His messenger the age to bring, When, crown of brotherhood upon him, Each man shall be to his neighbor king!

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Like oxeye daisies of the field, The stars their countless numbers yield In this pure sky of depth unfathomed, Wherein they lay, and so deep, concealed.

Gardens of light, environed fair With tremulous bloom of azure, where All-sweet star-buds unroll their glories In silent dews of etherial air!

O Tiller of the fields of heaven, Gardener of space, by day and even The circling earth, a once fair garden, Lifts up its face for Thy promise given.

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The sovereign law of human life That Love ordained for man and wife, For homes whence stream the generations To joyous service and not to strife--

This law gives rest and labor fit, God's air on surface and in pit, Wealth for the soul, and mind, and body, And fellowship with the race, close-knit.

O golden year, when law and life Incorporate are, as man and wife, And winged hosts of light are saying: "Peace and goodwill on the earth are rife!"

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Break into flower, O garden fair! Long hast thou known the Gardener's care; The rain and dew from heaven have fallen, And sunbeams warm on thy bosom bare.

The grains of seed all viewless fell Within the mellow soil to dwell,-- Silent the fall as that of pebbles Cast in oblivion's sunless well.

List, music ether-fine up-goes From swelling seed and life's keen throes! O Earth, thy riven breast shall blossom In Heaven's own beauty, e'en as the rose!

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Immortal Love, immortal ruth, Thorn-crowned, and crowned with deathless youth! Source of pure faith and of right-reason, Thou art Authority and the Truth.

Blest Bond of Being, why and whence! In realm of thought, in realm of sense, In world of human life and action, True Centre, Thou, and Circumference.

The sun and moon from spacious height, And stars, may crumble into night! Ongoing Lord! Eternal Order, And Fount of Beauty and Love and Light!

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THE WHITETHROAT.

Shy bird of the silver arrows of song, That cleave our Northern air so clear, Thy notes prolong, prolong, I listen, I hear: "I--love--dear--Canada, Canada, Canada."

O plumes of the pointed dusky fir, Screen of a swelling patriot heart, The copse is all astir, And echoes thy part!...

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Now willowy reeds tune their silver flutes As the noise of the day dies down; And silence strings her lutes, The Whitethroat to crown....

O bird of the silver arrows of song, Shy poet of Canada dear, Thy notes prolong, prolong, We listen, we hear: "I--love--dear--Canada, Canada, Canada."

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SUMMER.

O come, unpack the heart of care! Kingcups sun the meadows o'er, The yellowbugle sudden blows By the river's tidal flows, And the heavens are bare.

_Room, room, and open sky, River or brook or lake hard by, Buttercups, daisies, grasses, clover, Bobolinks, meadowlarks--these love I! Whiskodink!_

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Sail, swallows, sail this emerald sea Waving to the west wind's breath! Earth has few other fields like these, Sweet of sun and tidal breeze, And the droning bee.

_Room, room, and open sky, River or brook or lake hard by, Buttercups, daisies, grasses, clover, Bobolinks, meadowlarks--these love I! Bobolink!_

And now the white clouds sail along, Azure-domed and idle free! The air is lush with honeyed blooms, Flashing go the summer's looms, List her cheery song:

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_Room, room, and open sky, River or brook or lake hard by, Buttercups, daisies, grasses, clover, Bobolinks, meadowlarks--these love I! Whiskodink!_

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GLORY-ROSES.

"Only a penny, Sir!" A child held to my view A bunch of "glory-roses," red As blood, and wet with dew.

(O earnest little face, With living light in eye, Your roses are too fair for earth, And you seem of the sky!)

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"My beauties, Sir!" he said, "Only a penny, too!" His face shone in their ruddy glow A Rafael cherub true.

"Yestreen their hoods were close About their faces tight, But ere the sun was up, I saw That God had come last night.

"O Sir, to see them then! The bush was all aflame!-- O yes, they're glory-roses, Sir, That is their holy name.

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"Only a penny, Sir!"-- Heaven seemed across the way! I took the red, red beauties home-- Roses to me for aye!

For aye, that radiant voice As if from heaven it came-- "O yes, they're glory-roses, Sir, That is their holy name!"

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THE WIND.