Part 4

But in the great, high council of the skies There’s One who reads men’s hearts with milder eyes.

[B] St. Matthew’s Gospel v. 22.

SING ME THE SONGS I LOVE.

Sing me the songs I love once more, The songs your lips have made so dear, For many a day must pass before Again your music fills my ear. And when you are no longer near, I’ll in my loneliness rejoice, Deep in my inmost heart, to hear The gentle music of your voice.

’Tis not in words that friendship lies, E’en when those words in music move, But words have power that never dies, When said or sung by those we love. So when in weariness I rove Through the world’s desert, seeking rest, The memory of your songs shall prove A solace to my lonely breast.

And when you sing those songs again, For gayer hearts and brighter eyes, And thinking upon “now” as “_then_,” Memories of other days arise, Believe that none more dearly prize The strains your lips so sweetly pour, Than he who asked ’neath other skies, “Sing me the songs I love once more.”

IN MEMORIAM.

He is dead! and what words can we say that will tell half the sorrow we know; He is murdered! and mutters for vengeance are mingled with wailings of woe; He is gone! and the voice that thrilled thousands, like music, forever is hushed; He lies bleeding! and with him the heart of the nation lies bleeding and crushed!

Ah! yes, he is gone! The pure stars that lighted him home to his rest, Saw his blood as he lay there, a martyr, his hand to a motionless breast; And the wings of the angels that quivered a moment before with his words, Flashed again--“He is dead,” and the souls of the waking were pierced as with swords.

Hardly strange doth it seem that the Springtime refuseth this morn to be gay, And covers her eyes with a veil, and putteth her garlands away, For she feels that the heart of a prophet of man and of nature is still, And she hideth her flowers in her bosom and cannot be gay, if she will!

O Canada, weep, ’twas for thee that he spoke the last words of his life! Weep, Erin, his blood has been shed in the healing of wounds of thy strife! Weep, Scotia, no son of thy soil held thy mountains and valleys more dear! Weep, England, thy brave, honest eyes never glistened with worthier tear!

He was true to himself, to his faith, to the lands of his birth and his choice; He was true, when, a boy, he obeyed, as he deemed it, a patriot voice; He was true, as a man, to the light gained by years, spite of slanderous breath; He was true, as the champion of peace, amid foes, under ban, _unto death_!

“Had he faults?” men will ask. Who is faultless? How many there are who redeem Not the faults that they have by one virtue to make them a shield of esteem, But lie evermore all content in their grave of misdoing; but he Sent a light through his life that makes glorious for ever the name of MCGEE.

APRIL 7th, 1868.

KILLYNOOGAN.

I.

Killynoogan,--hallowed name,-- Though thou’rt little known to fame, My heart’s homage thou dost claim.

II.

Though to stranger ears thou be But a word of mystery, Meaning deep thou hast for me.

III.

All thy quaint old masonry Now before my eyes I see, As, of old, it used to be.

IV.

Ah! too well I can recall Every stone in every wall,-- In my heart I count them all.

V.

And the lawn before the door, I can see it as of yore, Bright with daisies spangled o’er.

VI.

And the hedge, along whose side, Oft, in childhood, I have tried To escape, when playing “Hide.”

VII.

And the miniature wood, Where in boyhood I have sued Coyish maiden, Solitude.

VIII.

And the garden full of flowers, Where I’ve past romantic hours, Dreaming of fair ladies’ bowers.

IX.

In the orchard, stretched at ease, On the grass, I hear the breeze Piping ’mong the apple trees.

X.

While from many a leafy nook, Grave as parson at his book, Rook replieth unto rook.

XI.

I can hear the river’s flow As it murmurs, soft and low, Bringing news from Pettigo.

XII.

I can watch it to the mill, Where the never-tiring wheel Dances round and drinks its fill.

XIII.

Past the ever-bubbling “spa,” Past the castle of Magra, Razed by Cromwell’s cruel law,

XIV.

On it goes with many a turn, Playing with its fringe of fern, Till it touches broad Lough Erne.

XV.

Here I leave thee, little stream, Lost, like much I dearest deem, In my life’s oft-shifting dream.

XVI.

Lost! but let me backward haste, I have little time to waste In my ramble through the past.

XVII.

Words are cumbersome, at times, Thought could visit fifty climes, While I’m seeking useless rhymes.

XVIII.

I am back upon the lawn, That I’ve often stood upon, But--is every body gone?

XIX.

Knock,--is any one within? Not a sound, except the din Of the mice,--they must be thin.

XX.

Look along the avenue, Is there any one in view? Surely, this cannòt be true?

XXI.

Put your ear upon the ground! Listen! Is there any sound? Every thing is hushed around.

XXII.

Oh! I dream! I might have known; _I_ have wandered,--_they_ are gone, And of _four_ remains but _one_.

XXIII.

Two were young and two were old; _Three_ are lying stark and cold In death’s rigid, icy fold.

XXIV.

Dear old Killynoogan, thee, Once so full of life and glee, Lifeless, desolate, I see!

XXV.

But, beloved and sacred spot, Nought of thee shall be forgot, Till what I am now--is not.

“What can I do that others have not done? What can I think that others have not thought? What can I teach that others have not taught? What can I win that others have not won? What is there left for me beneath the sun? My labour seems so useless, all I try I weary of, before ’tis well begun; I scorn to grovel and I cannot fly.”

“Hush! hush! repining heart! there’s One whose eye Esteems each honest thought and act and word Noble as poet’s songs or patriot’s sword. Be true to Him: He will not pass thee by. He may not ask thee ’mid His stars to shine, And yet He needeth thee; His work is thine.”

HASTINGS.

_October 14th, 1066._

I.

October’s woods are bright and gay, a thousand colours vie To win the golden smiles the Sun sends gleaming thro’ the sky; And tho’ the flowers are dead and gone, one garden seems the earth, For, in God’s world, as one charm dies, another starts to birth.

II.

To every season is its own peculiar beauty given, In every age of mortal men we see the Hand of Heaven; And century to century utters a glorious speech, And peace to war, and war to peace, eternal lessons teach.

III.

O grand, old woods, your forest-sires were thus as bright and gay, Before the axe’s murderous voice had spoiled their sylvan play; When other axes smote our sires and laid them stiff and low, On Hastings’ unforgotten field, _eight hundred years ago_.

IV.

Eight hundred years ago, long years, before Jacques Cartier clomb The Royal Height, where now no more the red men fearless roam! Eight hundred years ago, long years before Columbus came From stately Spain to find the world that ought to bear his name!

V.

The Sussex woods were bright and red on that October morn; And Sussex soil was red with blood before the next was born; But from that red united clay another race did start On the great stage of destiny to act a noble part.

VI.

So God doth mould, as pleaseth Him, the nations of His choice; Now, in the battle-cry is heard His purifying voice; And now with Orphic strains of peace He draws to nationhood The scattered tribes that dwell apart by mountain, sea and wood.

VII.

He took the lonely, poet Celt and taught him Roman lore, Then from the wealds of Saxony He brought the sons of Thor; Next from his craggy home the Dane came riding o’er the sea, And last, came William with his bands of Norman chivalry.

VIII.

And now as our young nationhood is struggling into birth, God grant its infant pulse may beat with our fore-fathers’ worth! And as we gather into _one_, let us recall with pride That we are of the blood of those who fought where Harold died.

OCTOBER, 1866.

THE NAUGHTY BOY.

(_From H. C. Andersen’s Tales._)

A good old poet sat by his hearth, While the wind and rain were raging abroad; And he thought of the poor who roamed thro’ the earth Without a home or friend but God, While he was as snug as he could desire, Roasting his apples before the fire.

And just with the thought came a voice outside: “O pray, let me in, I am wet and cold.” In a second the door has been opened wide, And there standeth a boy with ringlets of gold. “Come in, my boy, there is warmth for thee here; Come in and take share of my frugal cheer.”

So the boy came in, and in spite of the storm A cherub he seemed who had come from the skies, With his curly locks and his graceful form, And the sparkling beauty that lit his eyes; But the bow that he bore was so spoilt with the rain, One would say he could never have used it again.

Then the good old poet nursed the boy, And dried him and warmed him and gave him wine, And his heart grew glad, and the spirit of joy Frolicked and danced o’er his face divine; “Light of heart thou seemest, and light of head, Pray, what is thy name?” the old poet said.

“My name is Love; dost thou know me not? Look, yonder my bow and my arrows lie, And I’d have you beware. I’m a capital shot.” “But your bow is spoilt.” “Never mind; I’ll try.” And he bent his bow, and he aimed a dart, And the good old poet was shot thro’ the heart.

And he fell from his chair, and he wept full sore: “Is this my reward for my apples and wine?” But the Naughty Boy could be seen no more; He was forth again, for the night grew fine. “Bah! I’ll warn all the boys and the girls I know, If they play with this Love, they’ll have nothing but woe.”

So the good old poet he did his best To make others beware of a fate like his; And he shewed them the arrow that pierced his breast: “Now you see what a terrible boy he is!” But an archer, who’s never two moment’s the same, Like Proteus, it’s hard to keep clear of his aim!

ROSA.

Thou art gone, sweet love, to take thy rest, Like a weary child on thy mother’s breast; And thou hearest not, in thy calm deep sleep, The voices of those that around thee weep.

Thou art gone where the weary find a home, Where sickness and sorrow can never come; A flower too fair for earthly skies, Thou art gone to bloom in Paradise.

Thou art gone, and I hear not thy gladsome tone, But my heart is still beating “_alone, alone_,”-- Yet often in dreams do I hear a strain As of angels bearing thee back again.

Thou art gone, and the world may not miss thee long, For thou didst not care for its idle throng; But this fond bosom, in silent woe, Shall carry thine image wherever I go.

Thou art gone, thou art gone! Shall we meet no more By the sandy hill or the winding shore? Or watch as the crested billows rise, And the frightened curlew startling cries?

Thou art gone, but oh! in that land of peace Where sin, and sorrow and anguish cease, Where all is happy and bright and fair, My own sweet love, may I meet thee there?

MARCH, 1857.

JUBAL.

(Book of Genesis iv. 21.)

The Sun soon kissed to flowers, the blood-stained sod, From which the voice of Abel cried to God, And drove his murderer to the land of Nod;

And smiling, kindly watched them day by day, Till they, like Abel, died and passed away, And other flowers grew bright above their clay.

While with impartial kindness, year by year, He kissed from Cain’s curs’d face the awful tear That flowed when that dread voice appalled his ear.

Still as at night the silent woods are stirred By the lone calling of some mateless bird, Ever that voice in Cain’s sad heart was heard.

But busy hands for good or bad are best To still the aching voices of the breast, And load the body with the soul’s unrest.

So, tow’rds the Sun the City Enoch rose, Beneath Cain’s hands, as in the desert grows A palm whose shade the tawny outcast knows.

The City Enoch! from the first-born named Of the first-born of woman, son of blood! Built long ere Babel’s boastful tower was shamed, Earth’s lonely capital before the flood!

The City Enoch! here were sown and grew The seeds of Art when Art and life were long; Here Lamech turned his misery to song, Hence Jabal journeyed, seeking pastures new!

Here man’s soft hand made brass and iron yield To cunning shapes and uses,--wondrous skill! Tearing earth’s iron heart with iron will, To see what secrets in it lay concealed!

And here, O music, like a dream of heaven, Thy subtle thrills did touch the wearied brain, With raptured, passionate longing to regain The bliss of having naught to be forgiven!

Let me in fancy see thee rise again O city of the Wanderer, seldom sought! City of that wise Jubal who first taught The harp and organ to the sons of men!

That I may learn the secret of his might, Who, leaving earth unto his brother’s care, Did gentle battle with the powers of air, And made them his and ours by victor’s right!

Adah, the first-beloved of Lamech’s wives, Bare him two sons. Jabal, the eldest-born, Grew up to manhood, strong and bold and free; And leaving Enoch, sought a boundless home, Living in tents, a king amid his flocks, Setting his throne where’er his subjects thrived, Lord, or allowed vicegerent under God, Unto the “cattle on a thousand hills.”

But Jubal, wise and gentle, ’tis for thee That we would raise to life the giant shades That lived and loved, and sinned and wept and died Ere Heaven’s great tears had washed away the crime That stained the beauty of the early earth; And Enoch, mistress of primeval Art, Lay, the dead mistress of a drownèd world.

What was thy year, thy month, thy day of birth, That we may mark it in our Calendar, “On this day, in a year before the Flood, Jubal was born, Inventor of the Harp?” Where shall we seek this knowledge? Of the stars? ’Tis said by some our hearts and brains depend Upon the union in their mystic dance They happen to be forming at the hour When we are born. Then we shall ask the stars. For they may recollect the year and hour They formed that wondrous figure when the power Of music touched the soul of man For the first time, and if they can, ’Twas then that Jubal’s life began!

Sibyl-stars, that sing the chorus Of the life that lies before us As we open mortal eyes! Strange phrenologists of Heaven, That infuse the spirit-leaven Into nascent, infant brains, That can make them dull or wise, Forging subtle mental chains That must bind us until death, As ye calmly glitter o’er us, When we draw our primal breath! Mixing qualities together, Just according to the weather, Just according to the season, And the point of daily time, Noon or even, night or morn, That we happen to be born, For some sage, sidereal reason, Which some sophomores call “chance,” Some the “force of circumstance!” Tell, O fatal stars, sublime, What the swelling of the chime Into which you wove your dance, What the day and what the hour, Was so happy as to dower Earth with Music’s heavenly power!

Tell the day of Jubal’s birth, Day of Jubilee to earth.

Was the “music of the spheres” Audible to mortal ears? Did the winds of Heaven sing Till the forests clapped their hands? Did the ocean, heralding, Bear the tidings to all lands, Whispering, “Rejoice, rejoice,” Till the earth, unprisoning All her sounds, became a Voice? As the soaring of his wing When the distant eagle moves, Wakes to life the silent groves, At the coming of their king! Sibyl-stars, was this the way That Earth greeted Jubal’s day?

In those far shadowy years before the Flood Jubal was born, and this is all we know; Born in the land where Cain, in solitude And occupation sought to hide his woe Born with a gift, well-used, of sin the foe, A heaven-sent harbinger of promised good.

Oh! was not Adah happy in her boy? Oh! who could tell the secret of her joy, When, with a mother’s love, she pierced the veil That childhood draws round genius, lest it fail In its high aim, by adulation fed, And only feel the poison, when ’tis dead?

And Lamech, first of bards, whose kindred art Would welcome her sweet sister, watched his son As day by day he saw the promise start Towards accomplishment. Yet neither one, Father nor mother, knew as yet the prize For which they waited with such anxious eyes.

They saw that he was not of common mould: His quiet thoughtfulness, his pensive ways, His listening oft as to a story told, With side-turned head, and distant, earnest gaze, Told of some god-like purpose in his brain, Though what it was they asked themselves in vain. So Jubal grew in those far, shadowy years Before the Flood; and so the music grew Within his soul. The common air to him Was as a constant feast; its slightest touch Was joy to which all other joy was pain. The first sensations of his infancy Were blent with it. His mother’s tender sighs,-- Half sighs, half laughter,--as she looked on him, Wondering what sort of man he should become, Were like the breath of angels to his ear; And when his father’s mighty voice came forth, Majestic, through its bearded doors, he hushed The tremulous beatings of his heart to hear. And when his brother Jabal went away, And there were sounds of sorrow in his home, (And he wept too, though hardly knowing why) He treasured up the sounds as precious things, Until they seemed a portion of his life.

So did he gather all the tones of love And joy and grief, by strange instinctive power; And by and by, how anger wounds the air, And all the passions of the fallen heart That Satan hissed into the ear of Eve, He sadly learned; and yet with balanced sense, His great, high gift, he traced through all the tones The woman struggling with her serpent-foe, And desperate yearnings for lost innocence.

But most he joyed to listen to the words Of happy children, respited a while, From fearful looking to the day of death; And it was Jubal’s chief delight to wed Their gladsome voices with the Eden notes To which the first sweet marriage-hymn was set-- The silver-throated wooing of the birds-- The trilling of the zephyr-courted leaves-- The merry-hearted laughter of the brooks-- The multitudinous hum of joyous life-- The weird lullaby that Nature sings Unto the darlings fondled in her lap, Loving but helpless, and their low response; And all the vocal charms of summer time, That wrap the soul in dreamy, languid bliss.

All gentle sounds nestled within his heart, But not alone (though these he loved the most) Were gentle sounds the study of the boy. The mournful requiem of the dying leaves,-- The piping gales that make the forest dance,-- The tempest’s rage, to which the pine and oak Are but as playthings to an angry child: The rain, the whirlwind and the thundercrash,-- The mountain torrent, “the vexed ocean’s roar,”-- The noisy lapping of the tongues of fire,-- The howl of hungry, ravenous beasts of prey,-- All that is sad or mad in Nature’s voice,-- All that reminds us of the awful words That pierced the fancied hiding place of sin, Ere yet the curse descended,--these he knew. For, in those giant days before the Flood, Nature and man were ever face to face, Till Art grew, Nature’s image, in man’s heart.

So Jubal revelled in all sweet, grand sounds, A seeming spendthrift, but with miser craft, Locking his airy jewels in the casket Of lovingest remembrance,--till the boy Dreamed himself into manhood.

Then there weighed Upon his brain the burden of a thought,-- To bring to life the music that his soul Had gathered from the music of the world,-- To make, by cunning union, every tone Of its great voice obedient to his will. And so he planned, awake, and, sleeping, dreamed Of this, his one idea; till at last ’Neath his creative hand the “Harp” was born. And then he planned again, for life was long In those far, shadowy years before the Flood, Until the “Organ,” in its mighty heart, Echoed the throbbings of the heart of man.

APOLLO DROPT A SEED OF SONG.

I.

Apollo dropt a seed of song Into my heart one day, And, smiling godlike, passed along Upon his heavenly way.

II.

I saw him make his golden arc, For many a weary day, But still the little seedling, dark Lay hid beneath the clay.

III.

But gentle eyes, one joyous hour, Shone where my seedling lay,-- O Love, tend well thy little flower, And let it not decay.

VOX DEI.

The beauteous pyramid of harmless flame Spelled G O D for Moses; but the thundered law Was needed for the wild, unruly crowd.

The awful test of swift-consuming fire Alone shewed Baal false to Baal’s friends; The “still, small voice” touched lone Elijah’s heart.

So God speaks variously to various men: To some in nature’s sternest parables; To others, in the breath that woos the flowers, Until they blush and pale, and blush again.

To _these_ the Decalogue were just as true If uttered on a summer Sabbath-day In village church--to _those_ there is no God, Till fiery rain has scarred the face of earth.

THE OLD WAR-HORSE.

I.

He paweth no more in the field, Where glitter the spear and the shield; Nor heareth the thunder of war, Nor smelleth the battle afar; In his eyes is no glory of gleam, And his strength is the strength of a dream.

II.

He never turned back from the sword, When the pride of the land was his lord, Yet his neck is bowed meekly--the brave Can be meek, aye, as meek as a slave,-- And he works near the dark of his day,-- ’Twas _his_ pride (he was taught) to obey.

III.

In the gloaming of life his old eyes May see visions of glory arise; Who knows but within his old heart May thousands of memories start Of the march and the drum and the fife, Of the charge and the cry and the strife?

IV.

Who can tell? But, hark! once again He hears, as in whispers the strain Of that long-ago hid in his blood; It comes nearer; he paweth the mud Of the street, and his sinews rejoice, And he hears not his slave-master’s voice!

V.

Though his form no gay war-trappings deck, The thunder returns to his neck; Ha! ha! he is free! for the sound Of the trumpet his soul has unbound! He is off! not a pause, till he comes To the midst of the din of the drums.

VI.