Part 5

One clasp of my strong hands at will could break Thy tender body, like a fragile flower. How darest thou prey of my heart to make, And plot against my power?

Hast thou no fear the brute in me will rise, Wrathful, and tear thy shapely limbs apart, And dull the jewelled lustre of thine eyes, And still thy faithless heart?

Why dost thou let me look upon thy face, And see myself embowered in thine eyes, And every curve of thy lithe figure trace Beneath thy robe’s disguise.

What harm have I wrought thee that thou shouldst stand And menace all my life with one great woe? Thou hast me in the hollow of thy hand-- Take me or let me go!

MY LADY’S BONNET.

My lady has a stylish bonnet, Bedecked with ribands, gay and bright, And with a song bird perched upon it, With tiny wings outspread for flight.

Its little beak is opened wide, As though in its most joyous trill The harmless thing had suddenly died. One waits to hear it carol still.

My lady has a tender heart, She feeds the poor, instructs the young, At tale of woe her tears will start, And words of kindness throng her tongue.

My lady’s eyes are full of glee, But cloud and with just anger flash If in her walk she chance to see Some poor beast cringe beneath the lash.

My lady has a stylish bonnet, Bedecked with ribands gay and bright, But with a slaughtered bird upon it.-- My gentle lady, is this right?

FLOWERS AND FEARS.

She had been in the fields at play Through golden summer hours, And brought with her, at close of day, A cluster of wild flowers.

And when she slept, we went to see The little one at rest, Our own sweet flower, and there, ah, me! The flowers lay on her breast.

Her little brow was smooth and white, Her merry eyes were closed, She smiled, as though some heavenly sprite Whispered as she reposed.

She looked so pure, so white, so fair Below the ominous flowers, She seemed a blossom plucked from care To bloom in heavenly bowers.

And oh, the whelming flood of pain, The sudden sense of dearth! We kissed her o’er and o’er again, And brought her back to earth.

THE ROSEBUD.

In my garden a rosebud is growing, is growing, So fast, ’twill be blossoming soon. Around it the zephyrs are balmily blowing, The sweet scented zephyrs of June, Of June, The odorous zephyrs of June.

My love shall watch o’er, and protect, and protect it, While shyly its petals unfold. The bees shall not rob nor the canker affect it, Nor night make it tremble with cold, With cold, Nor night make it shudder with cold.

And when it is blown, I’ll bear it, I’ll bear it To her whom I worship alone. On her beauteous bosom she’ll lay it and wear it And rival its charms by her own, Her own, And shame all its grace by her own.

NIL DESPERANDUM.

Life with life is woven in. Neither sorrow nor delight, Neither nobleness nor sin, Known to one But falls upon All men with its grace or blight.

He who sinks into despair, He who from his task recoils, Makes his fellow-laborers bear On life’s road A heavier load. Some one for each sluggard toils.

What though failure crown our task! ’Tis the portal to success. Often Fortune wears a mask. Face the strife And live your life; Be no coward in distress!

FLESH AND SPIRIT.

Say what you will, If love would have its fill, Though it may feed long on the one dear face, It never is content, save in embrace.

Say what you will, Though passion have its fill, It never is content, nor has delight, If love come not to sanctify the rite.

Harmonious flesh and spirit, These only shall inherit The joys of earth, and in the dread To Be Not death itself shall break that unity.

Woe to the narrow heart Would strive these twain to part; Look down the ages, through the world’s mad din, This is the one unpardonable sin.

IN CHURCH.

I never feel so near to God and heaven As when I kneel in worship at thy side, And hear thy humble prayer to be forgiven For sake of Him who for our saving died.

And though I do not mingle with thy prayer Plea of my own, but, silent, bow my head, So close our souls are knit, I seem to share The bounteous blessings God on thee doth shed.

I hear the choir their joyous praises singing, But not their voices soften my flint heart; Thine only in my inmost soul is ringing, Bidding peace enter, grief and sin depart.

And as the music through my pulse is stealing, The rampart of my pride a ruin falls, Even as of old the Jewish trumpets’ pealing Shook down of haughty Jericho the walls.

SUCCOR THE CHILDREN.

Wan hands that never grasped a flower, Ears stranger to the wild bird’s song, To rule, where shall they find the power? How wage life’s battle, right the wrong?

When the great hour of duty comes, How shall they meet the mighty toil, Whose blood is tainted by the slums, Whose ears know but the street’s turmoil?

Succor the children of the street, And teach them in the fields to play, Nor let them in the stifling heat Of crowded cities fade away;

That, when we drop the thread of life And, dreamless, sleep beneath the sod, They may be ready for the strife That brings this planet nearer God.

THE SUNSET LESSON.

I watched the sun one summer eve Sink slowly in the west, And the quiet sea and fleecy clouds In rosy robes were dressed.

I saw the evening glide away, Yet still the sea and sky, As faint the star-zoned twilight grew, Were full of majesty.

And as, upon the breezy hill, I turned to sky and sea, Methought that nature spake and bade My spirit guileless be,

That, as the deepening shades of age Close round me, like the night, The memory of my past might still Life’s evening gild with light.

AS FROM THE NECTAR-LADEN LILY.

As from the nectar-laden Lily the wild bee sips, A British queen, sweet maiden, Drained with her loving lips The poison that was filling Her husband’s veins with death, Her love with new life thrilling His heart with each drawn breath.

Not less thy love, sweet maiden, Nor less thy bravery, For when I came, o’erladen With poisoned hopes, to thee, With smiles and shy caresses The venom thou didst drain, And, healing my distresses, Didst give new life again.

MUMMY THOUGHTS.

Once those who sought for relics of the past Stumbled by chance on an Etrurian tomb, And saw a monarch sitting in the gloom, Sceptred and crowned. Their eager hearts beat fast, And on the masonry themselves they cast, To seize the wonder. As, throughout the room, The axe stroke rang, it knelled the monarch’s doom. He fell to dust, and left them all aghast.

So, oft while searching through the realms of mind, I have discovered many a kingly thought, In solitary grandeur throned and crowned, And striven to bear it forth, only to find That, when the first stroke of my pen did sound, It fell to dust, and lo! I had it not.

TO CERTAIN NATURE POETS.

Friends,--such I call ye, for it is not meet To hail ye brethren in the tuneful art, Since I but falter, though of earnest heart,-- Friends, I have thought, reading your measures sweet, Your verses, though with many a charm replete, Were bettered did they some high thought impart, Or in man’s conscience plant a sudden dart. Why proffer roses when the world craves wheat?

Who paints a picture hath ill done his task, If he show not the soul in that he paints. Why give to mere description all your lays While what the eye beholds is but a mask To some grand truth the poet’s hand should raise, Revealing that for which man’s spirit faints.

THE PATRIARCH’S DEATH.

The birds that twitter in the budding trees And build their nests in some umbrageous grove, Through early summer guard the young they love, And fill the air with tuneful melodies. Then, as the fledgelings wake from dreamful ease, Eager throughout the unknown world to rove, The parents teach them their new strength to prove, And beat with fearless wings the summer breeze.

And then the nest sways empty on the bough. The parents, weary, although sweet the task, Take flight to other haunts, to rest from care. The fledgelings in the glowing sunbeams bask, Living their life. So is it everywhere,-- The patriarch dies; he is but resting now.

OH, WERE IT NOT.

Oh, were it not for one fair face, One angel voice, one loving smile, The world would be a dreary place, And life to me not worth the while.

Methinks the sun shines but to show How wondrous fair the maiden is; Methinks the warm winds only blow That they may kiss her draperies.

I know the roses bloom that they May live an hour upon her breast; I know that I would willingly Share their brief life to share their nest.

FAREWELL.

When the heart speaks, the lips are still, And if I cannot say farewell, ’Tis that a thousand yearnings thrill My heart, and hold my lips in spell.

Let thine own heart the thoughts express My lips would speak. Yet why repine? I knew thee, and, at least, can bless Thy life, though sundered far from mine.

THE TIDE.

Twice in the day a mighty tide there rolls Throughout our city streets, A limitless, deep sea of human souls, Each wave, a heart that beats.

Ah, me! what various ships are drifting there, Upon that living sea; What guile and innocence, what joy, what care, What utter misery!

At morn it ebbs far from home’s golden shore Into the sea of life, Where its dark billows meet and foam and roar In never-ending strife.

At night it flows, far from the mart’s turmoil, Backward upon its way, Where wives and children bring sweet rest from toil, Till dawns another day.

From year to year ’tis thus these waters move, Life’s duties to fulfill; Obedient to the silvery moon of love, That rules them at its will.

MY COMRADE.

Could I have had you made a boy, And both be young through life, Methinks I might forgo the joy Of calling you my wife.

For sweet as is the kiss of love And all our converse staid, Still dearer to our hearts doth prove Some wayward escapade.

When from behind your glistening foil You dare me to the fray, From sober spousehood I recoil; It is “en garde” straightway.

And when we urge our light canoe Upon some sparkling tide, More prone am I to think of you As comrade than as bride.

Ah, were you but a youth, like me, Who could, unawed, recline By huge camp fire, beneath some tree, Upon a couch of pine;

And could you press through marsh and brake And thrive on hunter’s food, What sweet excursions we might make To nature’s solitude!

Yet if you were a youth, some maid Might lure you from my side, So I shall wish you still, comrade, My dainty, fair-haired bride.

MY GIFT.

I bring a gift that all may bring, So common ’tis to human kind; And yet it is so rare, a king His crown for it had well resigned.

It is a gift gold cannot buy, And one which never can be sold; A gift no mortal can deny, And one that fades not, nor grows old.

And while I would not have it spurned, Such is my heart’s perversity, Unless I know my gift returned, Life hath no joy in store for me.

HAMLIN’S MILL.

Brightly the sun that summer day Upon the charming scene was shining, And warm the thrifty village lay, Amid its silent fields reclining. The river, like a silver thread, Wound round the hazy, shimmering hill, Till, plunging o’er the dam, it fled In eddies down to Hamlin’s Mill.

Along the pathway, through the grove, Beneath the shady trees, we hurried. The birds were twittering above, While in and out the squirrels scurried. We took the narrow road which wound Through clearings that were smoking still; And soon our merry chat was drowned Amidst the noise at Hamlin’s Mill.

We stood within the sunlit room And watched the busy bobbins turning; Then gathered round a jangling loom, The flying shuttle’s secret learning. Across the mossy flume we crept, Whose leaky sides their burden spill, And stood beside the pond, where slept The giant power of Hamlin’s Mill.

Beside the ceaseless loom of fate We stand and watch what it is weaving. The warp is spun of love and hate, The woof of merriment and grieving. But far beyond earth’s noise and dust, There rules the one stupendous Will, The power in which His creatures trust, As in the mill-pond Hamlin’s Mill.

A BALLADE OF JOY.

Dear one, who wast chosen, ere time was made, The heart of my heart and my wife to be; Who cam’st, with the gifts of the gods arrayed, To lighten the labors of life for me; Ere yet I had looked on the face of thee, My soul dreamed dreams and awoke and said: “None other is worthier love than she, And earth shall be heaven when we are wed.”

But woe as a burden on man is laid, And the soul finds its vision not readily. Between us came many a mocking shade, That smiled with the smile of my fantasy, And I thought, can it be I have met with thee? Then the arrows of truth through the false were sped, And I heard thy soul murmuring cheeringly, “The earth shall be heaven when we are wed.”

Like streams in the hollows of hills that played, Though sundered by league upon league they be, That, slipping through tangles of sun and shade, Meet, mingle and flow to the shoreless sea, At last my soul met with the soul of thee, And woes fell from me as leaves fall dead When winds have wakened the sleeping tree, And earth became heaven when we were wed.

ENVOI.

And now, though years like the birds may flee, And death draw nigh us with noiseless tread, I reek not how soon may the summons be, For earth became heaven when we were wed.

REMEMBRANCE.

(_From the German of Fredrich Matthison._)

I think of thee When through the brake The nightingales sweet music make. When dost thou think of me?

I think of thee By the shady well, Under the twilight’s glimmering spell. Where dost thou think of me?

I think of thee With pleasant pain, With yearning, while the hot tears rain. How dost thou think of me?

Oh, think of me Till in some star We meet again. However far, I think of none but thee.

THE GLOVE.

A narrow glen with winding sides, Bestrewn with rocks and gloomed with trees, Grey, rolling clouds, chased by the breeze, A stream, which through the valley glides.

Among the trees that climb the hill The eager squirrels scold the crows, And sharply sound the sudden blows Of some woodpecker’s greedy bill.

The blood root, crouching in the grass, From its protecting broad leaf peers; The horse tails shake aloft their spears, Like foemen, at us as we pass.

Here wandering with a friend I love, Our speech with sparrow-chatter drowned, He in the little valley found An early violet, I a glove.

The flower grew beside a stone, And shyly peered above the sod, While, distant from it not a rod, The dainty glove lay all alone.

Some child had drawn it from her hand To dabble in the sunny spring, And then, the thoughtless little thing, Had left it lying on the rand.

And as I saw the symbols there Of budding life and blossoming spring, Arose and from my heart took wing To heaven a brief and heartfelt prayer:

O little child, whoe’er thou art, And in whatever station set, Be modest, like the violet, And act in life an earnest part,

That, as the streamlet by the sun Is gently lifted to the skies, Thy soul may unto heaven arise Whene’er its earthly course is run.

THE MAGIC BOW.

(_From the French of Charles Cros._)

Rippling low to her dainty feet, Tress with tress did mingle and meet, Yellow as ripening August wheat.

Her voice had an eerie melody, Like that of an angel or a fay. Beneath dusk lashes her eyes shone gray.

He by no rival swain set store, As valleys through, or mountains o’er, The maid upon his steed he bore.

For all the land had held not one That she in her pride would look upon To the day she met him, and was undone.

Love did her fond heart so enchain That when her lover smiled disdain, She to sicken and die was fain.

As she lay dying on his arm, She said, “Bind thy bow with my locks, to charm The maid to whom thy heart grows warm.”

One long, wild kiss, and the maid was dead. The shimmering aureole round her head He bound to his bow, as she had said.

Then as a blind man mournfully Sweeps his Cremona, so did he, And went forth, seeking charity.

And all were thrilled with ecstasy, For the dead lived within the lay, And with her songs all hearts did sway.

The king showered honors on his head; The dark-eyed queen, to honor dead, With him by moonlight swiftly fled.

But when, to please her, he essayed To play, no more the bow obeyed, But mournfully did him upbraid.

And at its plaint the sinful twain In mid-flight by remorse were slain, And the dead had her pledge again.

Her locks that to her dainty feet Rippling low, did mingle and meet, Yellow as ripening August wheat.

AT THE SEASIDE.

O sun, with thy ardent glance, Thou hast made my darling flush! But the swarthier tints enhance The charms of her modest blush. Thou hast lent thy warmth and light To the gleam of her melting eyes, Till a glance in their depths so bright Seems a peep into Paradise.

O sea, with thy great white arms, Thou hast stolen my love from me! Thou hast clasped to thy breast her charms; She has rested her head on thee. Thou hast tangled her silken hair, And kissed her face and her lips-- Ah! Love, he is false! Beware Of that spoiler of men and ships!

THE ORPHANS.

Shall walls have pity and man’s heart have none? Shall walls protect and man refuse to aid? At Christmas, when our children are arrayed In furs, shall orphans crouch behind a stone To hide them from the storm? Is there not one Will see the outstretched hand of that frail maid, To whom the baby brother clings, afraid? Will no ear heed when hunger makes its moan?

No father’s arm about their forms is thrown To shield them from distress, no mother’s love Draws them within the shelter of her breast. Those tender souls must front the world alone; But, if Christ came not vainly from above, Some noble heart will aid them, thus distressed.

ALADDIN’S LAMP.

Aladdin’s lamp of Eastern tale, Which claimed my simple faith in youth, Its loss no longer I bewail, But hold it mine in very truth.

The geni waits but my command To raise me, and, as swift as thought, Bear me abroad, from land to land, Wherever I would fain be brought.

Amid the silent northern snows, Or where Egyptian deserts burn, Wherever man has been, he goes, And tells me all I wish to learn.

He tells me how the stars had birth, And how their wondrous cycles run, Or places me beyond the earth, Unharmed, upon the giant sun.

Through him I learn what Science knows, How this vast universe began; How life, from mean beginnings, rose High as God’s noblest creature, man.

On me dawns many a truth profound About the swinging earth I tread, That it is one vast burying ground, The living living through the dead,

That where once flowed the ocean’s tide, Now stand the homes of countless souls; That where once mountains rose in pride, Billow on foaming billow rolls.

The geni stems the flood of time, And bears me almost to its source; Then as we float, bids scenes sublime And sad and happy shore our course.

I see the tower of Babel rise, With busy builders everywhere, Up, ever up, towards the skies, Spearing the azure depths of air.

I hear a voice from out a cloud, And see the workmen making signs,-- How humble God can make the proud! How easily mar man’s best designs!

I see the wild Light Tresses fall In cruel waves on fated Rome, And in an emperor’s audience hall I see the jackals make their home.

Sleek monks I see within their cells, And knights in burnished armor housed. I hear the chime of marriage bells For maids whom death hath long espoused.

I hear the poet’s stirring strain, That wins him immortality, And weep with such as found with pain Their idol but ignoble clay.

Writ by the fearless Luther pen, The words that stirred the world I see; I hear the tramp of arméd men, And know that thought, at last, is free.

The joys and hopes, the griefs and fears, Defeats and conquests of the race, Through all the swift, eventful years, The geni at my wish will trace.

And though he builds no palace vast For me, nor gives me queen for bride, While I am free to all the past, I ask from him no boon beside.

SONG.

When a maiden’s heart is tender, And her soul as pure as snow; When her eyes, with sunny splendor, Set her countenance aglow; When her every move discovers Newer graces without end, She can win a hundred lovers,-- Yet may hunger for a friend.

Pearly teeth and curly tresses, Ruby lips, in smiles that part, These will lure a man’s caresses, Easily enslave his heart; Yet, when all is said and over, Even though souls in passion blend, She has only one more lover, And may hunger for a friend.

Blind I am not, no, nor callous; Beauty hath its charm for me. Yet would I, beyond life’s shallows, Push towards the depthless sea. Friendship’s true, and Love’s a rover, Love is selfish in the end. Choose thee, Sweet, whatever lover, Let me still remain thy friend.

QUATRAINS.

I.

The oyster turns into a gem The sand that chafes it long; My woes, can I not banish them, I round into a song.

II.

Fear less the villain than the fool. The villain may be read, But heaven itself can set no rule To judge an addled head.

III.

Nurse thou no sorrow, only learn All that it has to teach, And lo, a glorious gem shall burn Upon the brow of each.

IV.

The bard alone immortal is; In death he liveth still, And, godlike, with a word of his Makes deathless whom he will.

V.

Would they but speak who proved but weak To those who think self strong, How they would cry, continually, “Beware the first small wrong!”

VI.

_To Felix Morris._

Twin arts are ours, to act and write, And yours, perhaps, the greater is; You bring the world before men’s sight, I can but proffer fantasies.

VII.