Chapter 2

And ever, as the skiff plied on Among the trailing willows, Trekking the darker deeps to shun The gleaming sandy shallows,

It seemed that we had, ages gone, In some far summer weather, When this same faery moonlight shone, Sung these same songs together.

And every grassy cape we passed, And every reedy island, Even the bank'd cloud in the west That loomed a sombre highland;

And you, with dewmist on your hair, Crowned with a wreath of lilies, Laughing like Lalage the fair And tender-eyed like Phyllis:

I know not if 't were here at home, By some old wizard's orders, Or long ago in Crete or Rome Or fair Provencal borders,

But now, as when a faint flame breaks From out its smouldering embers, My heart stirs in its sleep, and wakes, And yet but half-remembers

That you and I some other time Moved through this dream of glory, Like lovers in an ancient rhyme, A long-forgotten story.

Sonnet

I would that love were subject unto law! Upon his person I should lay distraint And force him thus to answer my complaint, Which I, in well-considered counts, should draw. Not free to fly, he needs must seek some flaw To mar my pleading, though his heart were faint; Declare his counsel to me, and acquaint Himself with maxim, precedent, and saw.

Ah, I could win him with authorities, If suing thus in such a sober court; Could read him many an ancient rhym'd report Of such sad cases, tears would fill his eyes And he confess a judgment, or resort To some well-pleasing terms of compromise!

Lines

To you, dear mother heart, whose hair is gray Above this page to-day, Whose face, though lined with many a smile and care, Grows year by year more fair,

Be tenderest tribute set in perfect rhyme, That haply passing time May cull and keep it for strange lips to pay When we have gone our way;

And, to strange men, weary of field and street, Should this, my song, seem sweet, Yours be the joy, for all that made it so You know, dear heart, you know.

An Easter Hymn

The Sun has come again and fed The lily's lamp with light, And raised from dust a rose, rich red, And a little star-flower, white; He also guards the Pleiades And holds his planets true: But we--we know not which of these The easier task to do.

But, since from heaven he stoops to breathe A flower to balmy air, Surely our lives are not beneath The kindness of his care; And, as he guides the blade that gropes Up from the barren sod, So, from the ashes of our hopes, Will beauty grow toward God.

Whate'er thy name, O Soul of Life,-- We know but that thou art,-- Thou seest, through all our waste of strife, One groping human heart, Weary of words and broken sight, But moved with deep accord To worship where thy lilies light The altar of its Lord.

A Christmas Hymn

Near where the shepherds watched by night And heard the angels o'er them, The wise men saw the starry light Stand still at last before them. No armored castle there to ward His precious life from danger, But, wrapped in common cloth, our Lord Lay in a lowly manger. No booming bells proclaimed his birth, No armies marshalled by, No iron thunders shook the earth, No rockets clomb the sky; The temples builded in his name Were shapeless granite then, And all the choirs that sang his fame Were later breeds of men. But, while the world about him slept, Nor cared that he was born, One gentle face above him kept Its mother watch till morn; And, if his baby eyes could tell What grace and glory were, No roar of gun, no boom of bell Were worth the look of her. Now praise to God that ere his grace Was scorned and he reviled He looked into his mother's face, A little helpless child; And praise to God that ere men strove About his tomb in war One loved him with a mother's love, Nor knew a creed therefor.

When I Go Home

When I go home, green, green will glow the grass, Whereon the flight of sun and cloud will pass; Long lines of wood-ducks through the deepening gloam Will hold above the west, as wrought on brass, And fragrant furrows will have delved the loam, When I go home.

When I go home, the dogwood stars will dash The solemn woods above the bearded ash, The yellow-jasmine, whence its vine hath clomb, Will blaze the valleys with its golden flash, And every orchard flaunt its polychrome, When I go home.

When I go home and stroll about the farm, The thicket and the barnyard will be warm. Jess will be there, and Nigger Bill, and Tom-- On whom time's chisel works no hint of harm-- And, oh, 'twill be a day to rest and roam, When I go home!

Odessa

A horror of great darkness over them, No cloud of fire to guide and cover them, Beasts for the shambles, tremulous with dread, They crouch on alien soil among their dead.

"Thy shield and thy exceeding great reward," This was thine ancient covenant, O Lord, Which, sealed with mirth, these many thousand years Is black with blood and blotted out with tears.

Have these not toiled through Egypt's burning sun, And wept beside the streams of Babylon, Led from thy wilderness of hill and glen Into a wider wilderness of men?

Life bore them ever less of gain than loss, Before and since Golgotha's piteous Cross, And surely, now, their sorrow hath sufficed For all the hate that grew from love of Christ!

Thou great God-heart, heed thou thy people's cry, Bare-browed and empty-handed where they die, Sea-sundered from wall-girt Jerusalem, There being no sword that wills to succor them,--

And Miriam's song, long hushed, will rise to thee, And all thy people lift their eyes to thee, When, for the darkness' horror over them, Thou comest, a cloud of light to cover them.

Trifles

What shall I bring you, sweet? A posy prankt with every April hue: The cloud-white daisy, violet sky-blue, Shot with the primrose sunshine through and through?

Or shall I bring you, sweet, Some ancient rhyme of lovers sore beset, Whose joy is dead, whose sadness lingers yet, That you may read, and sigh, and soon forget?

What shall I bring you, sweet? Was ever trifle yet so held amiss As not to fill love's waiting heart with bliss, And merit dalliance at a long, long kiss?

Sunburnt Boys

Down on the Lumbee river Where the eddies ripple cool Your boat, I know, glides stealthily About some shady pool. The summer's heats have lulled asleep The fish-hawk's chattering noise, And all the swamp lies hushed about You sunburnt boys.

You see the minnow's waves that rock The cradled lily leaves. From a far field some farmer's song, Singing among his sheaves, Comes mellow to you where you sit, Each man with boatman's poise, There, in the shimmering water lights, You sunburnt boys.

I know your haunts: each gnarly bole That guards the waterside, Each tuft of flags and rushes where The river reptiles hide, Each dimpling nook wherein the bass His eager life employs Until he dies--the captive of You sunburnt boys.

You will not--will you?--soon forget When I was one of you, Nor love me less that time has borne My craft to currents new; Nor shall I ever cease to share Your hardships and your joys, Robust, rough-spoken, gentle-hearted Sunburnt boys!

Gray Days

A soaking sedge, A faded field, a leafless hill and hedge,

Low clouds and rain, And loneliness and languor worse than pain.

Mottled with moss, Each gravestone holds to heaven a patient Cross.

Shrill streaks of light Two sycamores' clean-limbed, funereal white,

And low between, The sombre cedar and the ivy green.

Upon the stone Of each in turn who called this land his own

The gray rain beats And wraps the wet world in its flying sheets,

And at my eaves A slow wind, ghostlike, comes and grieves and grieves.

An Invalid

I care not what his name for God may be, Nor what his wisdom holds of heaven and hell, The alphabet whereby he strives to spell His lines of life, nor where he bends his knee, Since, with his grave before him, he can see White Peace above it, while the churchyard bell Poised in its tower, poised now, to boom his knell, Seems but the waiting tongue of liberty.

For names and knowledge, idle breed of breath, And cant and creed, the progeny of strife, Thronging the safe, companioned streets of life, Shrink trembling from the cold, clear eye of death, And learn too late why dying lips can smile: That goodness is the only creed worth while.

A Caged Mocking-Bird

I pass a cobbler's shop along the street And pause a moment at the door-step, where, In nature's medley, piping cool and sweet, The songs that thrill the swamps when spring is near, Fly o'er the fields at fullness of the year, And twitter where the autumn hedges run, Join all the months of music into one.

I shut my eyes: the shy wood-thrush is there, And all the leaves hang still to catch his spell; Wrens cheep among the bushes; from somewhere A bluebird's tweedle passes o'er the fell; From rustling corn bob-white his name doth tell; And when the oriole sets his full heart free Barefooted boyhood comes again to me.

The vision-bringer hangs upon a nail Before a dusty window, looking dim On marts where trade goes hot with box and bale; The sad-eyed passers have no time for him. His captor sits, with beaded face and grim, Plying a listless awl, as in a dream Of pastures winding by a shady stream.

Gray bird, what spirit bides with thee unseen? For now, when every songster finds his love And makes his nest where woods are deep and green, Free as the winds, thy song should mock the dove. If I were thou, my grief in moans should move At thinking--otherwhere, by others' art Charmed and forgetful--of mine own sweetheart.

But I, who weep when fortune seems unkind To prison me within a space of walls, When far-off grottoes hold my loves enshrined And every love is cruel when it calls; Who sulk for hills and fern-fledged waterfalls,-- I blush to offer sorrow unto thee, Master of fate, scorner of destiny!

Dawn

The hills again reach skyward with a smile. Again, with waking life along its way, The landscape marches westward mile on mile And time throbs white into another day.

Though eager life must wait on livelihood, And all our hopes be tethered to the mart, Lacking the eagle's wild, high freedom, would That ours might be this day the eagle's heart!

Harvest

Cows in the stall and sheep in the fold; Clouds in the west, deep crimson and gold; A heron's far flight to a roost somewhere; The twitter of killdees keen in the air; The noise of a wagon that jolts through the gloam On the last load home.

There are lights in the windows; a blue spire of smoke Climbs from the grange grove of elm and oak. The smell of the Earth, where the night pours to her Its dewy libation, is sweeter than myrrh, And an incense to Toil is the smell of the loam On the last load home.

Two Pictures

One sits in soft light, where the hearth is warm, A halo, like an angel's, on her hair. She clasps a sleeping infant in her arm. A holy presence hovers round her there, And she, for all her mother-pains more fair, Is happy, seeing that all sweet thoughts that stir The hearts of men bear worship unto her.

Another wanders where the cold wind blows, Wet-haired, with eyes that sting one like a knife. Homeless forever, at her bosom close She holds the purchase of her love and life, Of motherhood, unglorified as wife; And bitterer than the world's relentless scorn The knowing her child were happier never born.

Whence are the halo and the fiery shame That fashion thus a crown and curse of love? Have roted words such power to bless and blame? Ay, men have stained a raven from many a dove, And all the grace and all the grief hereof Are the two words which bore one's lips apart And which the other hoarded in her heart.

He who stooped down and wrote upon the sand, The God-heart in him touched to tenderness, Saw deep, saw what we cannot understand,-- We, who draw near the shrine of one to bless The while we scourge another's sore distress, And judge like gods between the ill and good, The glory and the guilt of womanhood.

October

The thought of old, dear things is in thine eyes, O, month of memories! Musing on days thine heart hath sorrow of, Old joy, dead hope, dear love,

I see thee stand where all thy sisters meet To cast down at thy feet The garnered largess of the fruitful year, And on thy cheek a tear.

Thy glory flames in every blade and leaf To blind the eyes of grief; Thy vineyards and thine orchards bend with fruit That sorrow may be mute;

A hectic splendor lights thy days to sleep, Ere the gray dusk may creep Sober and sad along thy dusty ways, Like a lone nun, who prays;

High and faint-heard thy passing migrant calls; Thy lazy lizard sprawls On his gray stone, and many slow winds creep About thy hedge, asleep;

The sun swings farther toward his love, the south, To kiss her glowing mouth; And Death, who steals among thy purpling bowers, Is deeply hid in flowers.

Would that thy streams were Lethe, and might flow Where lotus blossoms blow, And all the sweets wherewith thy riches bless Might hold no bitterness!

Would, in thy beauty, we might all forget Dead days and old regret, And through thy realm might fare us forth to roam, Having no thought for home!

And yet I feel, beneath thy queen's attire, Woven of blood and fire, Beneath the golden glory of thy charm Thy mother heart beats warm,

And if, mayhap, a wandering child of thee, Weary of land and sea, Should turn him homeward from his dreamer's quest To sob upon thy breast,

Thine arm would fold him tenderly, to prove How thine eyes brimmed with love, And thy dear hand, with all a mother's care, Would rest upon his hair.

The Old Clock

All day low clouds and slanting rain Have swept the woods and dimmed the plain. Wet winds have swayed the birch and oak, And caught and swirled away the smoke, But, all day long, the wooden clock Went on, Nic-noc, nic-noc.

When deep at night I wake with fear, And shudder in the dark to hear The roaring storm's unguided strength, Peace steals into my heart at length, When, calm amid the shout and shock, I hear, Nic-noc, nic-noc.

And all the winter long 't is I Who bless its sheer monotony-- Its scorn of days, which cares no whit For time, except to measure it: The prosy, dozy, cosy clock, Nic-noc, nic-noc, nic-noc!

Tear Stains

Tear-marks stain from page to page This book my fathers left to me,-- So dull that nothing but its age Were worth its freight across the sea.

But tear stains! When, by whom, and why? Thus takes my fancy to its wings; For grief is old, and one may cry About so many things!

A Prayer

If many years should dim my inward sight, Till, stirred with no emotion, I might stand gazing at the fall of night Across the gloaming ocean;

Till storm, and sun, and night, vast with her stars, Would seem an oft-told story, And the old sorrow of heroic wars Be faded of its glory;

Till, hearing, while June's roses blew their musk, The noise of field and city, The human struggle, sinking tired at dusk, I felt no thrill of pity;

Till dawn should come without her old desire, And day brood o'er her stages,-- O let me die, too frail for nature's hire, And rest a million ages.

She Being Young

The home of love is her blue eyes, Wherein all joy, all beauty lies, More sweet than hopes of paradise, She being young.

Speak of her with a miser's praise; She craves no golden speech; her ways Wind through charmed nights and magic days, She being young.

She is so far from pain and death, So warm her cheek, so sweet her breath Glad words are all the words she saith, She being young.

Seeing her face, it seems not far To Troy's heroic field of war, To Troy and all great things that are, She being young.

Paul Jones

A century of silent suns Have set since he was laid on sleep, And now they bear with booming guns And streaming banners o'er the deep A withered skin and clammy hair Upon a frame of human bones: Whose corse? We neither know nor care, Content to name it John Paul Jones.

His dust were as another's dust; His bones--what boots it where they lie? What matter where his sword is rust, Or where, now dark, his eagle eye? No foe need fear his arm again, Nor love, nor praise can make him whole; But o'er the farthest sons of men Will brood the glory of his soul.

Careless though cenotaph or tomb Shall tower his country's monument, Let banners float and cannon boom, A million-throated shout be spent, Until his widowed sea shall laugh With sunlight in her mantling foam, While, to his tomb or cenotaph, We bid our hero welcome home.

Twice exiled, let his ashes rest At home, afar, or in the wave, But keep his great heart with us, lest Our nation's greatness find its grave; And, while the vast deep listens by, When armored wrong makes terms to right, Keep on our lips his proud reply, "Sir, I have but begun to fight!"

The Drudge

Repose upon her soulless face, Dig the grave and leave her; But breathe a prayer that, in his grace, He who so loved this toiling race To endless rest receive her.

Oh, can it be the gates ajar Wait not her humble quest, Whose life was but a patient war Against the death that stalked from far With neither haste nor rest;

To whom were sun and moon and cloud, The streamlet's pebbly coil, The transient, May-bound, feathered crowd, The storm's frank fury, thunder-browed, But witness of her toil;

Whose weary feet knew not the bliss Of dance by jocund reed; Who never dallied at a kiss! If heaven refuses her, life is A tragedy indeed!

The Wife

They locked him in a prison cell, Murky and mean. She kissed him there a wife's farewell The bars between. And when she turned to go, the crowd, Thinking to see her shamed and bowed, Saw her pass out as calm and proud As any queen.

She passed a kinsman on the street, To whose sad eyes She made reply with smile as sweet As April skies. To one who loved her once and knew The sorrow of her life, she threw A gay word, ere his tale was due Of sympathies.

She met a playmate, whose red rose Had never a thorn, Whom fortune guided when she chose Her marriage morn, And, smiling, looked her in the eye; But, seeing the tears of sympathy, Her smile died, and she passed on by In quiet scorn.

They could not know how, when by night The city slept, A sleepless woman, still and white, The watches kept; How her wife-loyal heart had borne The keen pain of a flowerless thorn, How hot the tears that smiles and scorn Had held unwept.

Vision

The wintry sun was pale On hill and hedge; The wind smote with its flail The seeded sedge; High up above the world, New taught to fly, The withered leaves were hurled About the sky; And there, through death and dearth, It went and came,-- The Glory of the earth That hath no name.

I know not what it is; I only know It quivers in the bliss Where roses blow, That on the winter's breath It broods in space, And o'er the face of death I see its face, And start and stand between Delight and dole, As though mine eyes had seen A living Soul.

And I have followed it, As thou hast done, Where April shadows flit Beneath the sun; In dawn and dusk and star, In joy and fear, Have seen its glory far And felt it near, And dared recall his name Who stood unshod Before a fireless flame, And called it God.

September

I have not been among the woods, Nor seen the milk-weeds burst their hoods,

The downy thistle-seeds take wing, Nor the squirrel at his garnering.

And yet I know that, up to God, The mute month holds her goldenrod,

That clump and copse, o'errun with vines, Twinkle with clustered muscadines,

And in deserted churchyard places Dwarf apples smile with sunburnt faces.

I know how, ere her green is shed, The dogwood pranks herself with red;

How the pale dawn, chilled through and through, Comes drenched and draggled with her dew;

How all day long the sunlight seems As if it lit a land of dreams,

Till evening, with her mist and cloud, Begins to weave her royal shroud.

If yet, as in old Homer's land, Gods walk with mortals, hand in hand,

Somewhere to-day, in this sweet weather, Thinkest thou not they walk together?

Barefooted

The girls all like to see the bluets in the lane And the saucy johnny-jump-ups in the meadow, But, we boys, we want to see the dogwood blooms again, Throwin' a sort of summer-lookin' shadow; For the very first mild mornin' when the woods are white (And we needn't even ask a soul about it) We leave our shoes right where we pulled them off at night, And, barefooted once again, we run and shout it: You may take the country over-- When the bluebird turns a rover, And the wind is soft and hazy, And you feel a little lazy, And the hunters quit the possums-- It's the time for dogwood blossoms.

We feel so light we wish there were more fences here; We'd like to jump and jump them, all together! No sleds for us, no guns, nor even 'simmon beer, No nothin' but the blossoms and fair weather! The meadow is a little sticky right at first, But a few short days 'll wipe away that trouble. To feel so good and gay, I wouldn't mind the worst That could be done by any field o' stubble. O, all the trees are seemin' sappy! O, all the folks are smilin' happy! And there's joy in every little bit of room; But the happiest of them all At the Shanghai rooster's call Are we barefoots when the dogwoods burst abloom!

Pardon Time