A Bird in Lincoln’s Tomb and Other Poems

A BIRD IN LINCOLN’S TOMB.
What name is thine? Art more than voice?
Song-bird thou canst not be!
Thou seemest neither to rejoice
Nor mourn, with tones so free!
With slow, delaying, pilgrim feet,
Like one within the vail,
I pause to rest, and tones more sweet
Commingle with thy wail!
Lo! all the choristers of Spring,
Around this holy spot,
Tender returning strophes sing,
For Lincoln unforgot!
Beside Ohio’s curving stream,
On that death-darkened morn,
The rush of an appalling dream
To my young ears was born.
Assassination! Ingrate word!
Millions wept long and sore;
My little life was sadly stirred,
Time moved it more and more.
Oh, priceless boon! I’ve lived to count
My country’s pulse with mine;
In love to climb this sacred mount
That holds this precious shrine!
What more is grief, or bliss, or care,
The space left one to breathe?
Hands that have touched this granite fair
No other urn would wreathe.
The lilacs of that April day
Drooped when our Martyr fell,
When his vast land in mourning lay,
And none its woe could tell.
Pity the woman’s heart that here
No dew hath left to shed!
Condole the man who owns no tear
For this most noble dead!
We charge you, guard his ashes well!
From year to year your guard
The pathos of his death shall tell,
No more could bay or bard.
Statesman of his devoted State,
Where once the Illini
Numbered their hordes, a people great
For progress doomed to die.
We of the Commonwealth implore,
We charge, aye, we command,
Watch you his rest forevermore,
So long his fame shall stand!
RENEWAL.
Deep in the solemn groves of pine,
Within the sounds of distant mills,
I saw, between two sister hills,
A fringed and golden orchis shine.
The trees like spires ascended tall,
Their earthmost branches narrowed low;
And oft their singing tones would flow
To meet a cadenced waterfall.
My orchis—it was mine and God’s—
Had but a little light and space
Wherein to grow and say its grace,
Where naught else bloomed nor greened the sods.
The pungent odor of the woods,
The yellowed spines that once were leaves,
All o’er the ground like shattered sheaves,
To Melancholy’s favorite moods.
One day I had complained and sighed,
As many a traveling soul has done,
For something never found or won,
Ideals and hopes ungratified.
And now I said, “Love” is not love!
Let life the softer word supplant,
High heaven the crown unfading grant,
Nor trusted be earth’s mask of love!
Alone I sat in that dun shade
Beside the glorious orchid flower,
One sad, retrieving Autumn hour,
And culled a thought that shall not fade.
I dared not break its slender stem,
The solitary spike that grew,
Denied a bath of nectar dew,
Rival of Beauty’s diadem!
If stars in the celestial sphere
Are thoughts of God from age to age,
Flowers, the lovely and the sage,
Bring angel meditations near.
Sweet messengers of all that’s fair,
Blooming below so bright and brief;
Stigma, stamen and iris leaf,
Shall be renewed—the tale’s not rare.
No mystery of love or law
Is more mysterious than bloom;
Cause, germ, result the tomb,
One Mind forecast, one Eye foresaw.
My orchis blossomed many a day;
It faded never—faith remains
To bear the soul from grief and stains
And all the legions of decay.

BIRD VOICES.
We list them in our Northern clime,
We near to Nature’s heart,
More happily than where the lime,
And kindred trees impart
Perpetual joy of bloom,
And fruits of rich perfume.
More precious when the wintry snows,
And tempest cold are gone;
When once again unfolds the rose
And lily ‘neath the sun,
In free, unprisoned air
Of wayside and parterre.
To-day I listened—”Can it be?”
I said with none to hear;
The Robin’s call so clear and free,
From city house-top near!
Toward an unbuilded nest
The bird had paused to rest.
Voice attuned so pure and sweet,
By no measured scale of art!
In music God bestowed, complete,
Fearless of man or mart!
Bird, cleaving atmospheres,
What mean these timid tears?
I see thee not, and thou art gone,
With thy love-panting breast;—
A memory for me alone,
Dear, unexpected guest!
Thou hast no thought for me,
But I am glad for thee!
“Brave Roderick, though the tempest roar,
It may but thunder and pass o’er.” —Sir Walter Scott.
There’s a scent of roses on the air,
A heaven in the wave;
The lilies by the rill have bloomed,
And green is “Robie’s” grave;
‘Tis spring again—I feel its power,
Though sadder than before
Are all its forms of loveliness,
On island, sea or shore;
But why this more than restless life?
O why these gloomy hours?
Friends love me still; and song is mine,
And hope still dews its flowers;
Alas! my native land, alas!
Thick clouds obscure its stars,
Its flag’s bright folds do not conceal
The thunder-bolts of Mars!
Columbia! my heart expands
In hopes wild thrill for thee,
Thou gem of ocean’s wide expanse,
Elysium of the free!
My soul, be not despondent now,
Implore Jehovah’s hand,
The God of Justice, Love, and Truth,
To save my Fatherland!

LIGHT AND SHADE.
Spring suns have lit the hills,
Late frosts congealed the rills,
And from the rainbow’s wreath
Hues of forboding death
Have painted autumn’s leaf;—
Spring hath unfolded flowers,
Soft summers sat in bowers
Of bloom and shade and sheaf;
Beauty hath sung her songs
To all Earth’s moving throngs,
Till thou and I, at last,
Have met as in the past,
Met once again, to sigh
With memory in “good-by.”
O life so sweet and grand!
O Friendship clasping hand!
Let no unsunned complaint
Our graceful feeling taint;
No rankling fruitlessness
Retard the growing tree
Of life’s felicity;
Nor force to growth’s excess
A labyrinth of thought,
Till damps of ruin wrought
With love’s unseen decay,
Blossom and bud betray.
Though hands unclasped reach forth
Toward West, or East, or North,
Through slow and changeful years;
Though unillumined tears
Wet solitary cheeks,
While tides of annual weeks
Move down the plains of time;
Though bells of sorrow chime,
And life’s lone labor lays
Across the heart’s fair ways
Obstructions hard and vast,
Still hope unto the last.

A LAMENT.
There’s something in the world
That I have never found;
It hath an ancient name,
With a complacent sound;
Methinks it blossom’d like old Aaron’s rod,
In mystic times beneath the smile of God.
Poets have hymned its rare,
Unchanging attributes;
Philosophers declare
It once bore golden fruits;
God’s children seek it o’er the Christian earth,
Sorrow is loth to credit its pure birth.
Millions have lived and died,
Nor left a word or sign
Of gratitude for this
Sweet ministry divine;
And I, alas! not blind, may do the same,
I only know its honest fame and name.
This treasure so supreme
Is rarely known to kings;
It loves the cots and dells
Where daisy verdure springs;
And never laid its peaceful head upon
Imperial pillows made of eider-down.
Friends do ye ask me why
My manhood’s hasting years
Have failed to find this cure
For multiplying years?
This potent “stone,” “elixir,” “amulet”—
This wealth that never bought a coronet!
First let me speak its name,
Then look into your souls,
And put the question home,
Where thought’s vast current rolls;
And ye may know the mighty reason why
Ye never were content, nor ever I.

EASTERN OFFERINGS.
Meek Mary Magdalene!
In all the ages gone,
The sacred story told of thee,
When rose the Holy One,
Hath never lost its power.
And now the Easter dawning,
With rose and lily-bloom,
Commemorates the morning,
When first beside the tomb,
Thy heart bemoaned the hour!
Lo! angels fair and shining,
Where “the stone was rolled away,”
And One thy grief divining,
More glorious than they,
Divinely called thee,—“Mary!”
O woman like no other
Favored upon the earth,
Save her the Saviour’s mother;
His resurrection birth
First spoke thy name—’twas Mary!
TO AN EDITOR ON HIS BIRTHDAY.
O fair as scenes Elysian!
O bright as stars that burn
In summer’s cloudless skies,
For thee be Hope’s sweet vision
Upon thy day’s return
Presaging Paradise!
Serene, with memories tender,
Look on thy noble past;
Some fadeless bloom and splendor
In its horoscope were cast;
Some shadows from life’s mountains
Fell often on thy ways;
While joys like gems o’er fountains,
Have crowned thy gentle days!
Light ineffable is near thee,
While slow thy sun declines;
Justice and truth endear thee
To men of taintless minds;
And tho’ perversion try thee,
Never thy soul will yield;
To sordid schemes—nought buy thee
A traitor for a Potter’s field!

EASTER MORNING.
A morn it was like this;
First numbered in the “Christian Years;”
Judea’s temples shone
For God: for Christ the Son
His sad disciples in their tears,
Through dreary days and nights
Saw not the starry lights.
A shining morn like this;
Succeeding one of doleful loss,
When in their love and gloom
Early around the tomb,
The Marys of the holy Cross
Dolorous, sighed and stood,
In mournful attitude.
A morn of hope like this:—
“Mary!” the living Saviour said;—
Hearts never thrilled like hers,
Lovers or worshippers,
No horoscope of time
Forecast that scene sublime!
A vernal day like this;
In that prophetic long ago;—
New stir of lustrous streams!
Beauty’s enchanting dreams!—
O hallowed season long ago,
By dual rainbows spanned,
From gates to Beulah Land.
On that fair day like this;
In bright and sacred Palestine
Rang no funeral bell;
There for the Israel
Of God, arose The Prince divine,
From His so transient grave,
Believing souls to save.
On that spring day like this,
Olives anear Jerusalem,
And precious Calvary,
In dark green lacery
Symboled for peace with silent hymn;
And lilies smiled more sweet
Before His noiseless feet.
That Easter day like this,
Perfume of Earth’s most regal flower,
From Old Damascus, kissed
The ascension robes of Christ,
And for His coming triumph hour,
Low cyclamens were bowed
In delicate accord.
In that springtime like this,
Perchance the softly green and wild
Acacias gemmed, with dew,
Tremulously knew
Their thorny branches wild,
For Jesus crucified,
A cruel crown supplied.
O joyous morn and day!
Easter for all recurring years!
Alleluia festival
Feast all their own may call;
Symphonious with celestial spheres;—
Music and bloom and praise,
Always for Easter days.
Passion Week, 1890.

TESTIMONIES.
The melancholy murmur
Of the sea-shell’s coral throat;
The wild-flowers sighing cadence,
When zephyr wakes its notes;
The song-bird’s wandering warble
That saddens while it cheers;
The brooklet’s broken story
To still and stony ears;
The rest before the tremor
Ere pine-boughs toss the air;
The tones that leafless forests
To winter’s snows declare;
Ah! what are these confessions
Through regnant nature grand,
But time’s assurance, telling
Of an eternal land!
The minister’s signal chiming;
The roll of battle drum;
The mountain passes’ echo;
The summer’s insect’s hum;
The lightning’s wild concussion;
The cascade’s whispering foam;—
The wanderer’s mournful chanson,
Calling for friends and home;
The chords of love that bind us,
And sweets of love that thrill;
Regrets, and strifes, and pleasures,—
All woes that heal or kill;
The sowing, growth, and harvest,
Suns, seasons, years and hours;
The voices of all things living;
The soul’s advancing powers;
O what are these expressions
Of God’s creative will
But promises eternal,
His future shall fulfil!

FLOWERS FOR EASTER.
Darlings of field and forest,
Garden, conservatory,
Bloom for the Easter story;
Damascus roses folden
In rich and royal splendor,
Viola’s petals tender;
Lilies of legends olden;
Iris of classic name,
Dyed heavenly blue and gold;
Carnation’s spicy fold,
With laurel leaves of fame,
Lilacs in fragrant masses;
Sweet waxen hyacinthus;
Narcissus, asphodelus,
The calla’s snowy chalice;
Pensive anemone;
Crowns of Magnolia tree;
Camelia’s sculpture palace;
Sweet herbs of fragrant breath,
Blue-bells of Canterbury;
Clusters of plum and cherry,
Acacia and verdant heath.

EASTER GLADNESS.
Seraphs and saints, and angels, sing
The resurrection of the King!
Again rejoice with praise and bloom;
This is the morn He left the tomb.
List! O list the melody
Of alleluias in the sky;
Filling ethereal spaces far,
Remotest realms of world and star.
Carols of joy! ‘Tis Easter-tide!
Echoes o’er Earth dispersing wide,
Signal the crowing of the year,—
Anthem and chime and choral clear.
Lilies of legends pure and sweet,
Before the risen Saviour’s feet,
Bend with no stroke of hand or weight,—
Adoring Christ immaculate!
Roses for royal beauty grown;
Violets for the faithful sown;
Mimosa, tremulous for love,
These bring your fealty to prove.
Fairy azalea blossoms white;
Primroses opened in the night;
Sprays of a gentle symbol vine,
All these and more for Jesus twine,
Gladness with song and full hosannas;
Festive, fond hearts and emblem banners
Perpetuate for future time
Our Christian Festival sublime.

SEA AND SHORE.
I stand by one
And am with God alone;
No heed of thoughtless throngs,
Asking no heartless songs,
Surges in solemn play,
Forward, break and away,
Eager to seek the source
Of all their grace and force.
Dead shells; white shoal of sand,
Millions of grains on my hand,
What years they’d count for thee!
Fractions of infinity,
Periods perihelion,
Nearing Life’s Almighty Sun.
Hear now, upon this shore,
Waves chanting, “nevermore,”
“Ever and evermore”;
Which echo shall I say
Many and many a day,
While bloom and fade the flowers,
On this fair world of ours!
Thus standing, friend, am I,
Enrapt with sea and sky;
Exultant that inwrought
Is mine with Sovereign thought,
Which none can subjugate,
Demon, or man, or fate.
‘Tis said we have lived before,
On some distant unknown shore;
In a happy realm of youth,
And never clouded truth,
Was love our being then,
Sweeter than hearts of men
And woman ever knew,
Purer, more certain true?
Was there no need of hope;
Of pride with peace to cope,
Aught in that lucent life,
Thorned and armed for strife?
No omens in dear eyes;
For sympathy no sighs;
For hours expected fair
No failure or despair.
Did blight of bud or bloom
Waste any rich perfume?
Did syllables of wrong
Hush any joyous song,
Or tender impulse chide,
For love unsatisfied?
None answers: intervenes
Some weird, memorial scenes,
Then Palmyrian solitude,
Where voiceless spirits brood,
Priestess or oracle,
Shall I your future tell?
Harps and organs of the sea
Tinkle and intone for thee!
Learn their melody—their psalm,
Sing true, and thou shalt rest in holy calm
and balm.

A SONG ON A SLATE.
Among dropped leaves last autumn dead,
‘Neath newly budding trees,
I’ve seen the small wind-flower shed
Its snow-flakes for the breeze;
It seemed to say, “Our early bloom
Like all that live, must find its tomb.”
I’ve seen the scentless tulip hold
Its ruby-mottled vase,
To catch some flakes of sunbeam gold,
In summer’s joyous chase;
The tulip could not pray, but well
Jehovah’s love the flower could tell.
I’ve seen the apple-blossoms rain
Their pink-white wealth and sweet,
Upon the grass, as if no pain
Could ever sting young feet;
And while my own walked slowly on,
I thought of many seasons gone.
I’ve seen the orchis in the wood,
Beneath low boughs of pine,
Whose spires were pointing up toward God,—
Their Maker, yours and mine,
Its graceful fringes loved the shade,
No price for robes like these is paid.
I’ve seen the sumach’s wondrous eyes,
On many colored leaves,
As though the rainbows left the skies,
And broke, like loose-bound sheaves,
To paint them as no brush can paint,
I thought how soon such leaves shall faint!
I’ve seen, touched by the soft, new snows
Winter’s first day was bringing,
The petals of an autumn rose,
While Sabbath bells were ringing,
Fold close again, refuse to bloom;
They seemed to say, “We have no room.”
But somewhere there is room for all,
All beauty, life and love;
Christ said the sparrows never fall
Unseen by God above!
Forever shall heaven’s roses fair
Perfume the never chilling air.
Written on a boy’s slate.

CRICKET SONG.
Cricket, Cricket, Cricket,
Grillo, Grillo, Grillo,
Chirping in the thicket,
Tell me what I wish to know,—
Meaning of your voice!
Cricket, petted by the Greeks,
When the earth was almost young;
Singing in September weeks,
With your little tuneful tongue,
Does your heart rejoice?
“Grillo,” where few birds in Spain,
Sing ‘mong mountains high and old;
There in lonely glen and plain,
He is cheery, free and bold,
With his happy voice.
Let us just a minute, see,
Cricket, if you’re black or white;—
Are you by the lilac tree,
Where we thought you hid last night
With your music voice?
Naughty Cricket, you will not!
Do you always live alone?
Mayhap fairies know the spot
Where you sleep when summer’s gone,
When you make no noise!

TRUE AND UNTRUE.
A promise broken is the same,
Though it be great or small!
By “change of mind” great sorrow came
From Adam to us all!
Silky Mouse and Moussey Gray
Lived in a garret far away
From the parlor and the cook;
But they sometimes crept to look
Upon the dainties there,
So much there was to spare
Of cracker, crumbs, and cake, and cheese,
Their little eyes and mouths to please.
Brother and sister mice were they;
Just how it was they couldn’t say,
But a trap had caught their mother,
Their father and a brother;
And when they didn’t come
Back to their secret home,
Then wisely each concluded that
They both must hunt, if they’d grow fat.
They cuddled in their cotton nest,
Deep in an ancient oaken chest,
Whose cover was fastened close;—
“Aha! now, nobody knows
How we got in,” they said,
“Nor who first made our bed;
Our open door is hidden well,
And neither of us will ever tell!”
And when they heard, too near their box,
Voices of children, “A cunning fox
Couldn’t guess that we are here,”
Said Silky to her “dear;”
And if a boy jumped on the lid,
Still whispered one, “were surely hid!”
Now in a chamber of the house,
Well known to Miss and Mister Mouse,
A little girl lay ill;
Better she grew, but still
She long upon a sofa there,
Must be content, and could not share
The out-door games, nor run
About for exercise, or fun.
So, many a crumb and fruity seed
Fell from her velvet-cushioned bed,
From delicacies brought to her;—
One day, alone and still, a stir
Listening she scarcely heard;
“It’s not, I’m sure, a wandering bird,
Nor a cricket slipping out,
To rest himself and look about,”
She thought, and then beside
Her satin shoe a mouse she spied!
“I’ll be his friend,” the sweet girl thought,
And when her dinner-tray was brought,
She saved some bits to offer him,
And then reclined her head to dream,
While little mousie flew
And called his sister too
That she might share the dainty feast
Which proves him not a selfish beast.
But what was his chagrin to find
That she’d found something to her mind,
And was nibbling away as fast as she could,
You see she was bad while her brother was good.
TO A POET ACROSS THE SEA.
I dreamed thou gav’st me gems
Of wondrous lustre and cost;
And while my still heart I crossed,
Like one who has touched the hems
Of our High Priest’s risen attire,
Behold! a censer of fire,
Like a lightning flash of storms,
Destroyed their rapturing light,
Then mantled the ashes in night.
I thought of their radiant form,
Emerald and amethyst,
Diamonds all the stars had kissed,
Ruby of the rose’s heart,
And the jacinth’s splendid ray,
Then folded my hands to pray.
I sought no magical art
My beauteous things to restore,
Nor knew I whom to implore,
My eyelids closed in despair,
Then ope’d on a scene most fair,
A glorious vale of flowers!
Each bloom was inscribed with a name,
‘Twas thine, son of song and of fame!
Thy fancies were fruits in the bowers!
Then whispered a voice, “‘Tis thine,
This ideal realm, and mine!
Memory and hope immortal,
Reflection and tender thought,
Its vistas of peace have inwrought;
And we will adorn its portal
With evergreen vine and bough,
And sybilline mistletoe!
Take heart, then, friend afar!
Grand waves are singing to me
Thy memory o’er the sea;
There’s magic in every star
That dips its rays in the amber west,
And summons the winds to rest!
As shadows transposing may blend,
Again shall thy path and mine
Unite in one, or entwine,
Again will I joy in my friend!”

NOVEMBER ROSEBUDS.
The frost had chilled and killed the late autumnal violets,
And golden-hearted asters, with white or azure coronets;
Purple and yellow chrysanthemums in crowding clusters bowed,
In all the garden not a tree, or shrub, or vine looked proud.
Some boys were “laughing in their sleeve” that winter was at hand;
Some birds were sailing overhead to find a summer land;
I, in my heart, was thinking of a distant summer, too,
Where fruits our eyes have never seen will grow for spirits true:
And then I had a thought as sweet as any opened rose,
For through the panes that soon would bar the multitude of snows,
I spied two perfect buds which frolic frost had left unharmed,
And hastened out to take them in—as if they should be warmed!
I thought their rounded crimson petals would then unfold for me,
In God’s and Nature’s love and fragrant blooming mystery,
I placed them in a costly vase shaped like a folding leaf;
Day after day—they opened not—was mine a sinful grief?
My buds had grown too late; in cold or heat they could not ope!
Ah! it is not so with holy thoughts, life’s pleasant buds of hope!
Springing from pure and prayerful minds, here they begin to grow;
In heaven their richer bloom God’s grace and love to us shall show.
How sweet ’twill be to gather flowers in sinless Paradise,
And to behold them, soul and soul, seen by the Saviour’s eyes!
Never a bud, and ne’er a heart shall there be chilled by frost;
Never a smile of feeling’s bloom shall wither and be lost.

ANNIVERSARY.
In Memoriam.
An aureole purple fringed,
O’er crowns a rounded year;
To-day a heart with mourning tinged,
Finds solace in the tear,
Which on a flower-clustered grave,
One white-rayed aster may lave.
To-day no memories suffice
To keep her presence here;
As ere she entered Paradise,
She smiled from year to year;
Nor would I bring my mother down,
Where Earthly shades must veil her crown.
On some to-morrow yet to be,
My soul shall speed to her;
I know she waits to welcome me,
Sweet hope of life’s transfer;
No counting them, of vanished years;
No pictures of the “Vale of tears.”
Though buried here beside the sea,
Within a Berkshire dell,
The birth-spot loved so faithfully,
Regretted long and well,
Her spirit-thought may rest to-day,
Fondly as when she went away.
Upon Earth’s dim, dividing coast,
The vistas seem so far!
Yet yonder shines the blissful host,
And there the glory star!
Lo! when these mortal clouds are drawn,
Life’s sweet Eternity of dawn!

THE LITTLE VISITOR.
I guess I’m very homesick,
I’s sorry, aunty Brown;
I’m sure that I had rather
Not stay in your big town!
“I cannot wait for mamma
And sister Dell to come,
And so you’ll please to take me
To-morrow to my home.
“I love my little cousins,
I’ll come, perhaps, again;
But I do feel so homesick
I want to play with Jane.
“I want to see the chickens,
And morning-glories blue;
I want to climb the hay-mow,
Don’t want to see things new!
“Wish I could go this minute,
How can I wait all day?
I wish pa’s buggy wagon
Would only come this way.
“Is forty miles so many
I could not walk, you think?
Just let me try, good aunty,
I’ll only stop to drink,
Where my pa lets his horses,
When they’re tired and warm,
Just two miles from the village,
On this side of the farm.
“You told me that the city
Was bright, and nice, and gay;
I’m sure it’s not pretty
As meadows are to-day!
“Don’t scold me, auntie never,
I’m very, very sad;
I’m sorry that you brought me,
‘Cause I seem so naughty bad.
“Do take me home to-morrow,
Your governess, Miss Snell,
Can go in your nice carriage—
Goody! There’s ma—there’s Dell!”
Yes, while the little maiden,
The country cousin, Nell,
Was mourning her first trouble,
There came her ma, and Dell,
And right before the window
The farmer’s wagon stood,
The horses patient as if resting
In shade of leafy wood.
Then she was sad no longer,
But wanted ma to stay
And see the busy city,
With Dell, another day.
So wishes sometimes please us,
Like prayers that Jesus hears;
Answers may come before we
Have time to dry our tears.

JUBILANT.
Thrilling, filling fervent hearts with spirit sweetness,
Responsive to the modulated fleetness
Of melodious sound;
With fairy bound,
And heavenly eye the new Spring comes!
With gentle eloquence persuading
The seasons: with newly-honeyed lading;
Violets to sow
Where left the snow
Its dewy changes, glad Spring comes!
Luxuriant as happy youth, contrasting
With all decay her bright and everlasting
Dreams of delight;
Crowned with her white
And azure crocuses, she comes!
From banks of hyacinth and sweet narcissus,
With chaste and rosy mouth she bends to kiss us,
Breathing perfume;
Sibyl of bloom,
In ecstasy of life, she comes!
She will not leave us! Hope says never, never!
Nature and Spring are wedded now forever!
The bridal maids
Through everglades
Of joy shall sing and dance: she comes!

A JUNE MIDNIGHT.
While solemn stars are sentinels
Unfolding roses sleep;
Silent into their grass-lined wells
The gathering dew-drops creep.
The bird sings but in memory;
The cricket’s chirp is hushed;
Lights not the mother’s ardent eye
O’er cradle pillows crushed.
Solicitude’s forgotten task
Love’s fears need not remove;
Its wings in dreamland’s valley bask,
Love trembles not with love.
No zephyrs stir, the hanging leaves
Of arbor draperies;
No slumbering mate-shorn lily grieves
For one it no more sees.
Pale at the feet of regal night,
They droop their lovely brows,
Dreaming in purity’s delight
Of hueless, distant snows.
Dispelling mist-clouds lightly hang
In silver Dian’s sheen,
As when the youthful astrals sang,
Creation’s pauses ‘tween.
The river’s gentle shimmer, makes
Reflections shimmer, too,
While prescient, sleepless fancy takes
Joy in the daylight’s hue.
No ivied minster’s chime reveals
The number of the hours;
But through the southern lattice steals
A tale of tropic flowers.
O, how encouraging and chaste
Is every object here!
Alas! the ceaseless, reckless waste,
The guilt that thrives so near!
Yonder a city’s towers rise
Above a circling plain;
Dim o’er it hangs the smoke that tries
To hide God’s sky in vain.
“La Belle Riviere.”

RESURRECTION.
Through last year’s halcyon days,
In ruby tints and gold,
Fruits rich and manifold,
From blossom disk and rays,
Ripened as God hath said.
Within the fruit the seed;
Within the seed the germ,
All safe from frost and storm;
Itself its ample need,
For life’s renewal fair.
Never the sun forgets
The smallest germ’s demand,
When breaks its embryo band;—
Acorn or violet,
A future tree or flower,
Hill-slope and wood and plain,
Garden and orchard dell,
Limit their mild farewell,
With ne’er a doubt or pain
For leaves in spent perfume.
Always their joys return,
Through Love’s creative plan,
Perennial for man;—
Surely as asters burn,
Life’s death is life again.

THE DANDELION’S CLOCK.
It never tells the time of day
Till its golden bloom has passed away;
Then if the airy globe of down
You very gently breathe upon,
Some children say it surely shows
The present hour by downy rows.
If then you blow, blow-o-o, blow-o-o,
With gentlest breath—no one can show
You how, if rude and swift you are,
Each tiny down is like a star
In filmy rays, but not in light,
See! as you blow the airy flight!
Blow all the down of seeds away
That does not try to cling and stay;
Then “make believe in fun,” or “play”
You do not know the passing hour,
And so this early ripened flower
Will tell you in its fairy way.
‘Tis thus we show how flowers speak
To those who will their stories seek;
For more than beauty are they made,
As Solomon the wisest said;
Both dandelions and lilies, too,
Telling God’s work, dear child, to you.

THE HILL OF LIGHT.
The Lord dwells in his holy hill,
His mountain home of light;
Many a pure and lustrous rill
Flows down to cheer the night,
Rills of his goodness, love and power,
That bless us, too, by day,
As rains revive a drooping flower,
As suns send storms away.
But God has other homes than this:—
His home is everywhere,
In mansions of immortal bliss,
In hearts that warm with prayer,
From all the worlds that he has made,
In elements that stir,
He says to us, “Be not afraid,”
And soothes each worshiper.
And from his high and holy hill
We hear no mighty voice,
For Jesus softly speaks to still
Our fears, and we rejoice,
This mount from whence the mercies flow
We faintly may behold,
When with sweet trust and faith we bow,
As good men did of old.
We see not with our mortal eyes;
‘Tis by the Spirit’s grace
Our souls enraptured seem to rise
And view the holy place,
And though the mount be far too high
For feeble feet to climb,
We may in His eternity
Ascend it height-sublime.

BIRD HOMES.
Above a chamber’s window,
Under a cornice covered
With leafless vines enlaced,
Sparrows guard well their coverts,
Whence up and down they hovered,
While the fair swift summer passes.
Over the winter lattice
And inside verdure, smiling
With promise of new seasons,
This family of sparrows
Ask never who is willing,
Nor care for any “reasons.”
And when at dawn they twitter,
And waken me from slumber
In “winter-time” too early;
I almost wish the sparrows
Killed by the boys who number
Their pranks for grumblers surly.
But in the noon and even,
The birds are so endearing,
So kind to love the city,
Our wintry season cheering,
I think, it is God’s pity
That sparrows should be hunted.

LILIES OF THE VALLEY.
Fragrant, fluted, waxen bells
Drooping on their stem;
Honey in their secret cells
Jesus cares for them.
Bells just large enough to ring
Little dews from dreams;
Who it is that pulls the string,
Ask the meadow streams.
Who may hear them ringing?
Butterflies and bees;
Birds, when they stop singing,
Flying from the trees.
Almost hid ‘mong banners green,
When the June airs move;
Nothing rude can come between
Lilybell and its love.
You must look so very close
Sometimes for them there;
Daisy neighbors say the rose
Never visits there.
You must listen very low,
For such sound as this;—
Many things you yet may know,
In the world of bliss!
Cousins have they, rich and great,
Lilies grand and gay;
Brocaded lilies dressed in state,
Dazzling far away,
Lilies of Japan remote,
And of Amazon;
Callas that on Nilus float;
Lilies of the sun.
“Were the valley lilies mine,”
Sings a little child,
“I would have them brighter shine,
And not grow so wild!”
“Were they mine,” an old man says,
Walking near to God,
“I’d not change their simple dress,
Growing near the sod.”
Made for all by Hand divine,
Hand that best knew how,
Neither are they his nor thine,
Child of sunny brow!

CAVERN PALACE.
Come, listen to my rhyming story!
A castle, quaint and grand,
Was built before the days heroic,
And by no mortal hand!
No ancient, firm and classic columns
Upheld its architraves;
No grace of marble-cut acanthus
It secreted waves.
The sun around it threw no splendor
When low the base was laid;
Fair moons gave no poetic lustre
To gild what there was made:
‘Twas deep below earth’s forming surface,
And earth was youthful then!
The angels, cherubim and seraphim,
Perchance had dreamed of men.
These silent chambers, halls and stairways,
All carpetless, are stone;
The never-curtained oratory
Is fragmentary stone;
The dark, dark labyrinths are winding,
Narrow, and still, and weird!
No light, save bold explorers’ torches,
That soon look dim and tired.
No pen has traced the early annals
Of this deep structure’s scars;
But here are banquet-rooms deserted
Before historic wars!
The craggy sideboards hold no goblets;
There’s nothing here for use;
The rugged seats are cold and stony,
Sofas that gnomes might choose!
With waveless tide, as black as midnight,
Unlit by starry glow,
Between these cavern-walls a river
Passes in current slow:
Sometimes across it careful paddles
Impel a shallow skiff,
And then the flicker of the lanterns
Reveals a mural cliff.
And they who paddle talk in echoes;
Wild echoes with them sing,
Roll and repeat their merry laughter,
And whispers almost ring!
A pistol fired for fun across it
Awakes the echoes deep,
As if a hundred muskets battled
Grim giants long asleep!
If I shall tell you what the name is
Of this old castle grand,*
You may aver, “‘Tis not a castle,
For ’tis not built by hand!”
But if you go to wander through it,
Suppose you are not too shy,
You’ll say some Mighty Hand did build it,
His hand who spread the sky!
Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. Visited by the writer.

CHILD-VERSES FOR ADVENT.
Now one more year of Christian time
With Advent morning closes;
The summer vines no longer climb,
Nor grow the garden roses.
The Easter lilies faded soon,
And all the blossoms vernal;
Then come the flowers of fragrant June
To picture bloom eternal.
God has “preserved the fruits of earth”
For us to use in gladness;
Each one foretells our spirit’s birth
From death, and sin, and sadness.
Yes, every seed that in the ground
Must die before arising,
In his own mystery profound
Is life and love surprising.
And now the joyous birds that made
Their nests and sang so brightly,
In leafy grove and grassy glade,
Have flown away so lightly!
We know they’ll come another spring,
From southern lands of beauty,
And tell us how our hearts should sing,
In gratitude and duty.
Now, in our happy Advent hours,
Of Winter and December,
As we twine wreaths and give our flowers,
Our Saviour to remember,
We’ll give to those who are too poor,
Some Christmas toys and treasures;
And pray that every humble door
May open for His pleasures.

GOD’S VOICE.
We hear His voice in every summer breeze
That murmurs soft, and moves the leafy trees;
We hear it in the thunder’s solemn sound,
And when the night wind whispers near the ground.
‘Tis heard upon the ocean’s mighty wave,
When storms rage high, and only He can save;
And when the ripples of the brooklets sing,
While flowers are bending o’er the banks in spring.
God speaks when insects brush their wings, or trill
On clover fields, or on the grassy hill;
In echoes of the waterfalls that tell,
In lonely valleys, stories of farewell.
The music of the morn that sweetly floats
Upon the sea or air, from birdling throats,
Was never taught by human rule, or art,
God leads it, and it gladdens many a heart!
Yes, all the sounds of life and nature are
Voices from Him who balanced sun and star;
He hath some meaning in them all, and we
May learn it in His bright eternity.

BRIERS.
I know a wide and verdant field
Not fenced with cruel barbed wires,
Nor any fence at all;
But if by chance you fall
Your length upon this open field,
You’ll scratch your face with cruel briers.
A very thorny ground it is;
One scarcely sees that it has use,
Not even for solitude;
Yet I am sure ’tis good,
Although few rambling footsteps choose
Its mimic stretch of wilderness.
Three churches stand not far from it;
A city, fair and old, is near;
A “village,” as some say;
Few boys come here to play;
‘Twas never called a playground dear,
The boyish taste it does not hit.
“Indeed, why should the boys like briers?”
Some smiling reader questions now,
And a boy is laughing loud,
I’d know him in a crowd,
Much good and beauty could I show
Amid these wild-rose thorns and briers.
The blackberry spines are thick and sharp,
But if you stand a little off,
And see the wild-rose flowers,
In the morn or evening hours,
Your hat you must not doff,
You’ll think of some sweet poet’s harp.
How many times they’ve sung the praises
Of roses wild and brief as these,
And told us of the thorn;
But this we thought forlorn
And needless in their harmonies,
And wish they’d sing again of daisies.
We like the cultured roses best,
And luscious garden berries, too,
Because their thorns are less,
And they’ve a finer dress;
Study is culture, boys, for you,
And souls are bright in virtue drest.

THE SNOW-FLOWER.
It sprang from frost,
In the changeless cold
Of an Arctic spot:
Like a love-thought lost,
Its tale was told,
And then forgot!
Was the story true?
Let a sybil tell,
If this magic flower
From snowflakes grew,
And cast its spell
In a wonder-hour!
Siberian gloom,
Where desolate
The earth remains;
A living tomb,
When cruel fate
Holds men in chains!
There ope’d the flower,
Where verdant leaf,
Nor fragrant bud,
Nor beauty’s dower,
Has solaced grief
Or warmed the blood!
“It upward shoots
From frozen ground,”
A tall, fair thing,
Where blushing fruits
Are never found;
Where smiles no spring.
Three days and then
Its grace is seen,
A bloom of snow!
Scarce known to men,
Its fairy sheen
Returns to snow.
Shaped like a star,
Lo! ’tis a flower
With anthers fine,
Its seeds they are,
A wonder-flower,
Briefly to shine!
Its leaves are three,
With frost encased,
Like jewels clear;
A trinity,
A symbol chaste,
Who sees it there?
Immortal eyes,
Rapt seraphim,
The angelic host,
Whom no surprise,
Or senses dim,
Have stirred or crost.

TEARS AND SMILES.
Our human hearts must sometimes weep;
Sometimes we laugh and sing;
As in this world the seasons change
From autumn, winter, spring.
God never chides our mirth and joy
When innocent they are;
He likes to see a face as bright
As sunshine, flower or star.
He made our tears to flow as well,
In some way for our good,
As gentle showers may revive
A violet of the wood.
But never should we waste such dews,
For trifling things to cry;
Weeping to give our dear ones pain;
Sighing to make them sigh.
The Saviour wept when Martha wept,
And Mary’s tears were shed;
When Lazarus, their brother, lay
Silent, and cold, and dead.
“Hadst thou been here he had not died,”
Speaks Mary while she weeps;
“Only believe,” the Master says,
“He is not dead, but sleeps.”
And many times before, the Lord,
Their loving friend had come
To sit with them in Bethany,
And cheer their little home.
And now the brother had been dead
Four dark and weary days;
When, with His sympathy divine,
He came the dead to raise.
And when he told them from the grave
To roll the stone away;
He lifted up his eyes to heaven,
As oft He did, to pray.
How wonderful it was to friends
Who stood around that “cave,”
When Jesus called the sleeper, bound
In grave-clothes, from his grave!
Often the blessed Saviour sighed
For human sin and woe;
He wept in love, in pain and grief,
For sorrows that we know.
How sweet it is on earth to feel
The pity of God’s Son;
If Jesus with his friends would weep,
Hearts need not weep alone.
THE EARLY CROCUS.
Herald of blooming bowers,
O white-robed, lovely thing!
Thy whisper links the flowers
With all the joys of Spring!
Lifting the lifeless mould
Whence nature’s life arises,
With sisters dressed in gold,
How sweet are your surprises!
Though Winter’s heart—it seems
Thy fragrance has defrauded,
It soothed poetic dreams,
When all thy grace was plauded.
We will not say, too soon
Thy loveliness retires,
Before the train of June,
Which all the world admires.
‘Tis not too soon, for thou,
God’s messenger of light,
Hast told some mortals how
Duty may give delight.
And so thy snowy leaves,*
Of texture pure as truth,
In fancy’s magic weaves
Heaven’s drapery of youth.
And thus meek hearts are shown
That somewhere beauty cheers,
Lit by Love’s radiant sun,
Unchanged by changeful years.
Then, Crocus fair, retire,
And let the rose advance
In Summer’s warm desire,
Ye never come by chance!
Petals.

PICKING DAISIES.
A very little lady girl,
With soft blue eye and flaxen curl,
With tiny red morocco shoes,
On feet such as a doll might choose,
If dolls could ever speak;
A rose leaf on each cheek;
A narrow dress of linen white;
A sky-blue sash of satin bright;
And there she stands upon a stone
Where some gray lichens like to grow;
Almost—Oh no! not quite alone,
Near crowds of daisies crowned like snow,
With honey-hearts of velvet gold;
And many buds not yet unrolled,
That on the morrow days,
Will spread their modest rays.
See! all around this little girl,
Of asking eyes and blowing curl,
Stretches a field of waving green,
Clover and daisy-blooming sheen!
And mamma sits quite near her child,
Ready to pick the blossoms wild,
When Mary’s hands reach out to take
The stems that they could scarcely break.
On what a merry happy trill,
Yes, call it laughter, if you will,
But I should say it was a bird,
That we must now in fancy heard!
So glad she is! for now she sees
The bright June-daisy companies,
First time in her three little years,
She laughs till shining jewel tears
Spring from pretty eyes;
And Mary seldom cries.
Now you would think as many growing,
As if no stems were bent;
But if this story is worth knowing,
The baby is content,
Because her little hands are full!
You must not call her dull,
But she is “seepy tired,” so soon
Weaned of daisies in sweet June!

THOUGHTS BY THE SEA.
“Thus far,” thou time-defying sea,
With all thy offering waves,
May’st thou invade a realm as free
As thine—to number graves!
By old and unrecorded might,
By all declared of thee,
Thou never yet hast conquered quite,
Nor sealed immensity!
Man must grow old and change with time,
Age hath not altered thee;
Thy “history” is force sublime,
But ’tis not history!
Tradition chants thy restless power;
Old sagas tell of thee;
Chronology’s first signal hour
Looked back upon the sea.
I watched thee, one alone, entranced,
Forgetting falsity,
And life’s stern ills;—men say they chanced—
They chanced no more than thee!
Wise Greeks, of mystic figures proud,
No numbers tried for thee;
Their science and their art were bowed
Before thy mystery!
Climbing the solid shelves of rocks,
Gazing on mural heights,
We ponder earth’s volcanic shocks,
And wild irruptive nights.
We see thine ancient traces there,
The furrows of thy waves;
Grand sea! thou hast flowed everywhere,
O’er mundane plains and caves!
When all thy close-linked chains are drawn,
By currents of the deep,
In evening silence, or at dawn
When tempest terrors sleep,
We trust thee, riding on thy breast
Calmly as if the years,
And all the stars, in perfect rest,
Had never witnessed tears.
God spread two emblems for our eyes,
Of His eternity;
The fair and far transparent skies,
The vision-boundless sea.

CHORAL AND CHANT.
Again an autumn’s melody
Softens, subdues, and thrills
Proud hearts and human wills,
Chanting for all that all must die.
Now, many voiced, the strains commence
To blend like varied hues
When prismed rays infuse
Color with color’s opulence.
Time’s ancient psalmody of morn—
How swift its echoes roll
O’er earth and through the soul,
While nature garners fruit and corn!
Listening, responsive leaves have sighed
Since hid the August moon;
Condoling May and June
That all their youthful roses died.
Translate the cadence, heart of flame,
Whose unconsuming heat
Forbids thy hope’s defeat;
Music spells oft the poet’s name!
Singer, whose lyre is cased in gold,
Be thou in love a child,
But never thou a child
Of song, singing in dreams untold.
Soothe restless thoughts on cradling waves
Of harmony and grace;
Aye, in the frowning face
Of hostile cares, near griefs and graves.
Truth knows thy chanson notes are true;
Pure spirits taught them first,
Before a lily burst
A calyx bound with jeweled dew.
Thou knowest, from the steadfast stars
Earth’s vibrant chords were strung,
When first the veils were hung
That soften sunset’s splendid bars.
They trill the tremolos of boughs;
They move the grasses’ viols
In mystical denials,
When fairies would the fays arouse.
They swell the sovereign organ’s throat,
And make the cricket sing;
They lift the lark’s high wing,
And break the awful thunder’s rote.

TO AN ABSENT HUSBAND.
When all the world are sleeping,
When thought is calm and free;
In midnight’s hush of beauty,
My love, I fly to thee!
When stars and air and waters,
Send forth their angels fair,
To charm the wandering dreamer,
I’m with thee, dearest, there!
Entranced with spirit music,
We ramble through our past—
Neath shades and hallowed archways—
‘Mid blooms too fair to last!
In paths through meadows winding,
The emerald plains of bliss,
And on its rugged mountains,
Where snow and sunbeams kiss.
The morning of our bridal
Dawns on us, dear, once more!
We feel its halcyon promise,
And live it o’er and o’er!
But then grim storm clouds gather—
Ay, through the passing years,
Their thunders are repeated,
And I awake in tears.
Tears not of dark repining,
But joys and griefs o’erflow;
Commingling in the fountain,
Ere nature bade them go.
Ah! then life’s holiest angels,
Hope, faith and trusting love,
Around me sing their chorals,
And peace is mine, dear love!

THE DEATH OF DE SOTO.
Behold the wasting of a dream,
The flickering of life’s lamp!—
The tents are pitched beside the stream,
Low murmurs from the camp
Are whispering that the hand of Death
Is slowly stealing Soto’s breath.
An Indian maiden fans his brow,
Her coal-tinged eyes are deep,
Her tears as when the south winds blow,
Rain as the blossoms weep,
Falling on the sufferer’s cheek,
Whose eye of pride is strangely meek!
He speaks: “Moscoso! no return
Shall Old World conquer more;—
Ambition’s fires have ceased to burn,—
Farewell, my native shore!
To mortal man I never bowed,
But now I meet Jehovah’s rod.
“In my own river, folded round
With Castile’s banner wide,
In midnight’s hour, and shades profound,
Entomb me in its tide;
Consign me to my wave-walled home
With lighted torch and roll of drum.
“Unpaled by man, unknown to fear,
Alone, O let me sleep!
The Conqueror—Discoverer
Desires no eye to weep
That Soto’s watery grave was made
Far west of Florida’s everglade!
“Moscoso! hear, my follower brave,
My dying words obey;
Cross not the wilderness; the wave
More safely shall convey
The remnant of my people back
From this illusive, dangerous track.”
See!—Noiseless through the tent
A savage warrior strides!
His plume is by the curtain bent,
The wampum girds his sides;
His lineaments with war-paint black,
The shades of death precede his track!
A Natchez chief of vengeful laws,
His tawny neck arrayed
In chains, of bear and cougar’s claws,
With human tresses made;—
One hand sustains a war-pipe red,
The other emblem ever dread,
A bunch of poisoned arrows, bound
With skin of rattlesnake;
He broke a silence, deep, profound,
As noon upon a waveless lake,
As on the couch the gift he flung,
Whooping in rage his native tongue!
He then defiant raised the pipe,
No calumet of peace,
The stern, complete, embodied type
Of a relentless race!
The smoke he puffed but slowly curled,
For Soto lingered in the world!
The leader watched the fearful scene,
With one unearthly tone,
With deathly unrelenting mien,
His arms were upward thrown,
Clutching the covering of his bed,
As though ’twere lance or rapier dread!
With one fierce bound he forward sprung,
His features flashing fire:
“St. Jago!” “Spain!” “De Soto!” rung
With stern victorious ire;
Then death the struggle made complete,—
He fell! beside the Indian’s feet.
A flood of gore from mouth and eyes
Too truly told the tale;
“Gone! Gone!” Moscoso cries;
The deep-eyed maiden’s wail
Rose mournful on the forest air,
As o’er him fell her glossy hair.
Ambition! Ruler of the soul!
When monarch there thou art,
To many a strange uncertain goal
Thou leadest mind and heart;—
Thou wild inspirer of the breast
That ever after feels no rest!
The sun had set o’er wave and wild,
The noon of darkness breathed
In tainted damps; bright stars were piled
High up the vault, and wreathed
The ebon brow of Night, who bade
A silence chill o’er bluff and glade.
Five hundred torches flaming red
Illumed the funeral track,
While holy priest with censer led
The train o’er waters black,
And high Te Deum anthems rang,
And drums sent forth a muffled clang.
With Spain’s gay ensign folded round,
Still upright as in life,
With sword in hand, by helmet crowned,
All powerless for strife,
The dark canoe with silent oar
That corse o’er turbid waters bore.
The shades commingling with the glow
Sent awe to every man;
Midway the dark sepulchral stream,
A signal from the van
Sunk in the flow each lurid light,
And all was dark as Stygian night.
As down the lifeless burden fell,
No noisy splash was heard;
O’er rippling wave or distant dell
Went forth no echoing word.
But slowly turned each fragile bark
To face the spectral dangers dark.
Song of the Rivers.
The wild beasts roaming far and near,
Awoke their sullen roar;
The Indians in their coverts drear
Felt Soto was no more!
Still moved the Mississippi on
As calmly as in ages gone.

UPWARD.
“Look up,” though in the misty night
Few stars may be discerned;
Look from obscurity of light;
Remember, these have burned
An eternity unknown to thee!
Upward! sad heart, and listen long,
If long the darkness broods,
Until the echoes from the song
Of holy brotherhoods,
Sweetly surround and comfort thee!
Look up, ‘mid doubts of mortal sense,
In solitude and fear:
Jehovah builds the consequence
Of good, from year to year;
And He commissions thee!
Magi rejoiced to see the Star
Breaking centurial gloom:
Deliverance is not so far,
From the cradle to the tomb,
Ofttimes, as sorrow speaks to thee!
Upward!—the soul that emulates
Flight of seraphic wings,
An atmosphere of joy creates;—
It drinks from nectar springs!
Brother! such life thy own may be!
Look up then, pilgrim, from the shrine
Dearest of all on earth:
Press on, desiring love divine;
Twice may all souls have birth,
Thus saith the Master, God, to thee!
Lo! from the second birth the crown!
His jewels for the blest!
When staffs are laid forever down;
And weary hearts at rest,
Forget the dark, tempestuous sea.

GOD’S SIGNAL.
Earth’s glory sign: among the stars
Of night in Palestine,
Mild shepherd eyes a new one saw;
Born was the babe divine,
Man’s troubled soul to save.
Its light unveiled in all the past,
Than Pleiades more bright,
With mystical refulgence shone,
When seraphs in delight
Voiced victor glorias.
Lo! these so near the blazing star
Might wing, unknown to fear:
Its lucent beams no filmy plume
Could harm, tho’ round its sphere
Wings mingled manifold.
In that old morn Judeans asked,
“Is Christ so humbly born?
Jehovah’s word to Israel—
‘Twas not the hope forlorn,
If the Paraclete has come!”
In Persia far, behold the sign,
The promised herald star,*
Wise priests of Zoroaster saw:
Then journeyed they afar,
To proud Jerusalem.
And when before its king they stood,
In that prophetic hour,
Brief royalty grew tremulous
For the boasted Roman power—
The Prince of God was born!
No welcome and no feast,
Those noble pilgrims sought or found;
Before the Virgin Blest
Bare gifts they offered Him.
Ages are flown since first the star
O’er the manger wondrous shone;
God’s signal for the Christian year,
That Jesus Christ alone
Hath peace for human hearts.

“WANDERING JEW.”
A purple trinitarian bloom
Unfolded to my view;
I asked, “how dared a voice presume
To name it, ‘Wandering Jew’?”
A trailing, seldom blooming plant,
That almost will not die;
It seeks not others to supplant
In vital sorcery.
Who made it thus so free to grow?
Jehovah of the host
Of Israel, so long ago;
Whose prestige wonders cost.
This royal hue, these triune rays,
Appeal, pathetic now;
That noble race of other days,
Oppressed, for justice bow.
Shame on this age and that north-land
Autocratic, in the East;
Where base assumption of command
On Hebrew life is cast!
Remember we—o’er all the Earth,
God’s loving choice of them;
And that the Holy Saviour’s birth,
A “Jew” is not a dream.
The Decalog in Moses’ name,
Heaven’s statute for all time,
Before and after Solon came,
Insisting rules sublime;
These and the books Mohammedan,
Hold emphasis most clear,
That man to brother man
Should cause no needless tear.
And eloquent within a room,
Ere yet I thought or knew,
A small incarnadine of bloom,
Sighed for the Slavic Jew!

CATSKILL PICTURES.
The fringing verdure, toward the stars
Outlining solemn heights;
Fields sloping far whose harvest bars
Divide the earth’s delights,
In plenty’s indices.
Cloud forms mysteriously fair,
When showers depart the dells;
Dispelled oft’times in rainbows,—where
No sound love’s music tells
To soulful silences.
Orchards and groves that yearly grow,
Unhurt by pruning knife;
“Old-fashioned flowers” glad to “blow,”—
A world of weedy life
In honied chalices.
Homes wide enough for happiness,
By roads and winding ways;
Where haste and apprehensive stress
Of thought, or envious days,
Blight no felicities.
The “hollyhocks” of Windermere,
And Grasmere’s poet-home,
Cherished by him whose ardent sphere
Was arched by Nature’s dome,
No chaster grew than these.
Sunflower, the Nation’s bloom of pride;
Her goldenrod of grace;
Arbutus, pearl of mountain side,
And splendid Zea Mays,
Shine here with royal ease.
The weary soul that would forget
That ’tis not always free,
Should wander here when violet,
And pure anemone,
Open their vernal eyes.
The heart that would from self recoil,
And love more deep its kind,
To rest awhile from Summer toil,
Should here new fervor find
Ere all its fervor dies.

WHY DO THEY PERISH?
The following lines are affectionately inscribed to our little friend, Mamie W. Mack, who passed away from her earthly home at Englewood, Ill., July 30th, 1875, aged eleven years and four months.
“Why do they perish?—the blossoms we cherish,
The beautiful are sleeping cold in the clay.”
The beautiful—they brighten
When soon to pass away;
The radiant robe of autumn
Conceals its own decay;
The chrysalis awakens
With gaily mottled wing
To make a brief, sweet transit
Around the tomb of spring.
Magnificence of fountains,
Where all the rainbows meet,
This sapphire gems and diamonds,
Alas! they shine so fleet!
Flowers most fair and fragile
Are those we love the best;
Sweet lilies of the valley
Drop early on Earth’s breast.
Too soon our rose has faded,
Only from our dim sight;
Transplanted is the blossom,
To love’s immortal light;
We thought our darling fairer
In parting as she smiled,
And now her soft voice calling
Brings near our angel child.

A PICTURE.
Gentle Coraline,
Dressed in amber-green;
Tresses tied with coral strings,
Coral from the sea’s deep things;
Feet as fair as pearls!
‘Mong the village girls,
She, the sweetest of them all,
Was not very, very small.
Once these playmates lived beside
Rippling waters not so wide
As the river Illinois;
Little brooklet, bright and coy,
Indians named it Moccasin;
Little fishes gamboled in
Moccasin, the streamlet blue,
And its name was only Shoe
In the English tongue.
O’er its bosom hung
Mosses from the trees,
Vinery draperies
Where the breezes sighed;
Whip-poor-will could hide
In the sycamores—
Mournful bird is he!
Did you ever see
Lonely Whip-poor-will,
Singing low and ill?
On the grassy floors,
By this purling stream
It was just a dream
Coraline was straying
With her mates and playing;
Half a dozen girls,
With their braids and curls,
Red, and white, and gold
Dresses, tied and rolled,
Over feet as bare
As pink apples are!
Do you wish that you
By the river Shoe,
Playing, need not go to school;
Need not ever use a tool!
We must work, not always play;
We must study all the way,
Traveling in this world of ours;
In the thickets; ‘mid the flowers;
By the streamlets; on the plains;
In the winter; in the spring;
When the sun shines; when it rains;
Singing when the robins sing;
Merry when the autumn snows
For a season hide the rose;
Knowing that the Lord will bring
Beauty out of everything.

A BROKEN SONG.
“Once I heard a lady singing,
‘Time is winging, time is winging,
Flying fast as light;
Speeding day and night!
We can never see his wings,
But we know he silent brings
Knowledge, sorrow, joy.'”
“I am but a little boy,
And I heard her singing so,
Saying things I did not know!
What is time that flies so fast,
That we cannot see him go,
If he shoots so quickly past
With a rushing whirring sound,
Is he high above the ground?”
Boy, thinkest thou old Time’s a bird,
Like the eagle? Hast thou heard
That he ever trilled or cooed,
Like the cuckoo, or the dove,
Round a nest in tender love,
In the dell, or in the wood?
Never was he made for eyes,
Never like a bird that flies,
But he numbers all our years;
With their many hopes and fears;
Counts the days that we
Yet may live to see,
As he did for millions dead;
Like a picture wide outspread,
Swiftly all things he surveys,
But he cannot lengthen days:
Things that spread the world around,
Never do they make a sound;
Never seen and never heard—
What a wondrous spirit bird!
All things as he counts, are sure
Just their season to endure;
Seconds, moments, days and years,
Clouds and sunshine, skies and spheres!
All may sometime pass away
While he flies
With no eyes
Such as ever you might see!
What a solemn mystery!
Many things are strange;
Many things must change,
While we all must wait,
Opening of the gate
To eternity.
‘Tis not sad to die
If our souls may enter in,
Freed from every wrong and sin;
Pearly gates of Paradise,
Where “old time” no longer lies!

BESIDE THE SEA.
“Eternity—Eternity,
God and Eternity!”
Thus ever and forever
Singeth the solemn sea.
“Eternity—Eternity,
Man and Eternity,
Remember ever ever!”
Singeth the solemn sea.
“Eternity—Eternity,
Hope and Eternity,
Hopeless be never!”
Chanteth the cheerful sea.
“Eternity—fraternity,
Love for Eternity,
God loveth forever!”
Murmurs the patient sea.
“Eternity—Eternity,
God and Eternity,
Worship forever!”
Whispers the stormless sea.

A TRIBUTE.
Thrice hail! my steadfast natal hills!
Fair Berkshire’s dignate heights serene,
Where chestnut, oak and evergreen
Tower above earth’s brightest rills,
Fraternal lakes, and streams that woo the sunny vales.
Life’s dearest feelings, finest, best,
When mind is troubled, heart forlorn,
Unseen ’round spots where we were born,
In soft investing fancy rest;
When thus remembrance to some ears is mute we’re blest.
Though one hath wandered since a child,
And grown to care’s maturest task,
If stranger voices of him ask
What region first upon him smiled,
His heart beats young; its wakened joy beats new and wild!
And though a man hath sombre grown
Since in the flush of youth he started,
With one look backward—eager-hearted
Through contests seen and strifes alone,
Speak of his earliest home you hear his fervent tone!
Have we not lived as ancients said,
Somewhere in an existence past,
Some sphere by cloudless skies o’ercast,
Known now by chance to dear ones dead,
Whence we with memories released shall come at last?
God tells us not. If so it be,
This love of “Father-land” and home
From such seed sprang. Though man may roam
On earth a troubled century,
‘Tis rooted deep in souls endowed with loyalty.
Ye who have lived your years in view
Of Housatonic’s sentinels,
That guard but never bar its dells,
Ye have not thought I envied you!
Favored of heaven! know ye that exile joys are few?

A MEMORY OF ST. PAUL’S CHURCH.
A bride upon a morning fair,
To coronate her flowing hair,
No wreath above her veil would wear
Than snow-drops gathered there.
White waxen fruit of blossoms small,
It grew beside the old church wall
Named for the brave apostle Paul,
This ornament was all.
The brother—with no man’s consent
Climbed the low fence’s battlement,
Nor felt afraid that thus he spent
Moments which sadness meant.
Too soon for him that morning sped;
He saw his child-like sister wed,
Then hid himself, boy tears to shed,
By some strange prescience led.
More years than you may care to know,
Those faded buds once fair as snow,
I’ve kept, their little tale to show.
Ay, souls like seeds may grow!
Dear echoes of the star-set spire,
In its dolorous hour of fire,
The music of sublime desire
Ascension lifted higher!
Grand walls and aisles, your counted years,
Of worship, consolation, tears
Repentant, peace, seraphic spheres
Have garnered in God’s years!
Your worshippers in Jesu’s name,
New consecration from the flame,
A “restoration” will proclaim,
Exalting holy flame.

“FOR THOU WILT LIGHT MY CANDLE.”
If in the dark its ray hath ceased,
When pains and pantings are increased;
If colder cramps the air,
And earthquakes tremble all the ground,
And night is fearfully profound,
Thou, Lord, canst make it fair!
If friends around love’s atmosphere
Draw clouds that start the burdened tear,
And harshly faithless prove;
If hopes are dashed by adverse winds,
And these bend low the singing pines,
Thou, Lord, hast light above!
The feeblest taper, glimmering faint,
That flickers like a wild complaint;
Then lost like beauty lost,
God can with added flame restore
To make it burn forevermore,
And ask of thee no cost!
When in the dungeon of the mind
Thou canst no glowing promise find
Of all-pervading light;
Shut close thine eyes; believe and pray,
And lo! the soul’s effulgent day,
To shine, forever bright!
If thou hast blown thy candle out
With unpremeditated doubt,
And wonder if ’twill burn
Again upon thy lonely hill,
Barren of all but grief and ill,
There’s one can make it burn!

A SONG OF PARTING.
O, never shone the Evening Star
So bright o’er pathway leading far,
As on that eve anear the sea,
When love unseen flew after thee!
What sorrows yet to life may come,
I know not, and I long for home
Amid the stars; but thee to bless
I’d linger in the wilderness!
Thy pure mimosa heart, I fear,
May suffer trials chill and drear;
Within this changeful world of ours,
For thee I’d gather all its flowers!
Thy gift of song not all may know,
As I have felt its fervent glow;—
I pray no angel melodies
Shall close too soon thy dreamful eyes!
Thy soul attuned by Nature fine,
Fraternal kindred hath to mine;
It will not chide this song to thee,
For purest love is always free!

A LITTLE ACCIDENT.
Only a little salt,
Dropped in a shining glass
That a little water held—
You ask what came to pass!
The water was thoughtlessly poured
Upon a window flower;
It withered then and drooped,
Fading in one short hour.
“I’ve heard there are salts in the earth
That help give plants their food;
How could the flowers be killed
With that God says is good?”
O, yes, and, wondering child,
If carefully you look,
Many answers you will find
In God’s most sacred book!
A little, and not too much
Of many things will do;
Just to be pleased is pleased;
Just to be true is true!
This is temperance, you see;
Be always temperate;
In some things self deny;
In all be moderate.
“Pshaw! that’s not poetry!”
I think I hear you say;
No, ’tis a little truth,
Told in a little way.

TO MY FATHER ON HIS SIXTIETH BIRTHDAY.
Art thou in thy far “mountain home,”
Numbering thy vanished years to-day?
Alone do thy slow footsteps roam,
Pondering on thy children’s play
In summer hours departed long,
So like a vanished strain of song!
Or there beneath the cedars grand
Bends low thy sad and thoughtful head,
Bestowing on thy native land
Sighs for its glory dead!
The dull-red glimmer of its shield,
Mistaken “glory of the field!”
Dear father, almost loth am I
To count the shadows of thy years,
And—I cannot tell thee why—
A seal is on the font of tears,
But feeling like the ocean deep,
A calm exterior may keep!
Three score! Thy cycles one by one
Have left their impress on thy face;
Fancy wings back to childhood gone,
But no forgetting can erase
Those lines of age, and curves of thought
By Time’s unwonted pencil wrought.
To-day I’d rove that vale with thee,
And breathe its pure elixir air;—
My heart so bounding when ’tis free
Nature’s wild harmony to share,
Would almost back to infancy
And rest upon thy parent knee.
O tell me not of radiant bloom
Beneath the summit’s snowy band,
My soul so longed—once there to roam
On grass that springs from golden sand
Where meeting seasons blend their charms
And summer smiles in winter’s arms!
The future gives no promise yet,
And I must leave thee, father, still,
Almost alone, thy mild eyes wet
With vapor from affection’s rill.
But God is round thee, ever there,
As safe thou art, by heavenly care!

IN DURHAM WOODS.
The voices of the forest,
Where stately pines, and old,
Stand firm with oaks whose ages
No human count has told;—
When breezes of the sunset
Attune their leaf-strung lyres,
Rebuke in solemn cadence,
Self-thought and self-desires.
Some peaceful soul may listen,
And hear as some may not,
Over ethereal oceans,
Music almost forgot.
Childhood’s contented carols
Of sweet existence here,
With soft adoring anthems
From Love’s diviner sphere.
Say not your heart is lonely!
List, where all else is still
Save voices of the forest,
And love your soul shall fill;—
Your tired or troubled being,
Truth’s harmonies serene,
Will calm from every murmur
Perchance for what has been.

IMMORTALITY (?)
Who of the humblest—man or woman—in a later age,
May not impress the thoughts of beauty or divert the sage?
‘Tis accident, not destiny, a thousand times and ways,
Which may commemorate a man and twine his name with bays.
“Memorial sketches;” tales of old romance; historic scenes;
We note as though no century of shadow intervenes.
Obscurest names in living, dignate, typographic line,
Claim perpetuity while in dim caves no gem may shine.
Whether endowed with art divine, or soul-imparting song;
Whether a pampered servant in a sovereign’s well-paid throng;
Whate’er your occupation, base or semi-grand, your name
Futurity may trace with one who earned the noblest fame.

A PHOEBE-BIRD’S NEST.
October’s latest days
Had strewn the forest’s ways
With leaves that crowned the Summer
In crispy avalanches;
They slid beneath bare branches,
And buried insect hummer.
Mosses green, crimped and gray,
And fadeless vines at play,
Embossed and wreathed the ledges;
The chestnut’s frost-sprung burr,
The oak’s interpreter,
Dropped o’er their serrate edges.
The acorn might have told,
Not of an age of gold,
But wonderful creations,
That in its embryo lay curled—
Things to enchant the world
In diverse lands and nations.
As through eternal day,
Our vision spread away
Around the Catskills dreamy;
Assurance traced their forms
Above the plane of storms,
Cradled like islands creamy.
Not I a sovereign singer,
O’erawed, I could not linger
Upon this mountain lofty;
Deep in the rock below
Something my friend would show,
And down we clambered softly.
It was a wild descent
Of verge and battlement,
To find the unhewn portal;—
A structure old as Time,
Arches like truth sublime,
Finished by no hand mortal!
‘Twas entered where the rays
Only in Summer days
Might penetrate at noonday;
There, on a narrow shelf,
Some tiny artist elf
Had built in some past June-day!
We spared the lonely nest
Lined from the feathered vest
Of Phoebe and her lover;
A trophy for a vase,
We left it in its place,
To tempt some future rover.
What beautiful caprice
Sought covert sole as this,
Unfanned by leaflets swinging!
To find a bird’s nest there,
So strange it was, and rare,
To that stern rock-wall clinging.
Another Spring is born,
The branches bare and lorn
With life’s new blood are panting;
What if the same two birds,
Wedded by unknown words,
The olden nest are haunting?

A SONG FOR CHEERFULNESS.
In hero-halls of solitude,
Where memories and mysteries brood,
I would not linger if I could.
In deep and dark and voiceless caves,
On shoreless, stormy midnight waves,
Nor ‘mid the mournful peace of graves.
For trackless forests—though they’re good,
Because created by our God,
I have not oft a longing mood.
For desolate and desert plains,
Though on their green oasis rains
May sometimes fall, I sing no strains.
Nor rock-heights where the eagle flies,
Proudly so near the wondrous skies,
I would not lift my envious eyes.
For thoughts of sorrows nowhere near,
Which on my path may not appear,
I will not shed a needless tear.
I love the sunshine and the day,
Where flitting shades with brightness play,
And living things may safely stray.
I love the gentle noonday breeze,
Laden with aromas to please,
Which mortal vision never sees.
I love the hour of early morn,
When Beauty and Joy are newly born,
And Night conceals her realm forlorn.
I love not spots unknown to noise,
But with the birds would blend my voice,
And with all creatures I’d rejoice.
Say not by this that I am blind,
To Virtue’s holy, serious mind,
For truth in all things all may find.
And all the suffering and sad
I would, if possible, make glad,
Nor ever vainly wish I had.
We may be thoughtful as we smile,
Repentant of all sin and guile,
Happy and grave and wise, the while.

LOVE’S FANTASY.
I.
I dreamed: It was no vision-rose perfumed;
I saw no vale where lilies bloomed;—
It seemed
A height in sombre barricade
Of sunless pines and rock-façade,
Star-crowned,
In Ether’s conquering realm of old;
Its base in cloud of filmy fold
Was bound.
II.
Again
My lonely sleep’s enchantment led
Where never human words were said;
Where pain
Had ne’er implored its antidote;
Where consciousness was life afloat,
And free
From weight material and death;
And there, lost one, a songful breath
Found thee!

DISENCHANTMENT.
Stars of my childhood’s sky,
Immeasurably high,
Above all Science has to tell;
Might your enchanting spell
Return from those ecstatic years,
Earth nevermore would chide my tears!
Flowers in childhood’s hand,
No bloom of any land
Comparison has now,
With bloom of long ago;
Daisies my mother named for me
Were whiter than I yet should see.
Fruits to the child endeared,
No apple ever sphered
In luscious gold and red,
Hanging o’er the childish head,
Was half so beautiful to me
As shone upon grandfather’s tree.
Birds, sweetest friends of mine,
Whose harmonies divine
I love transcendently;—
They come from God to me,
Lo! all their joy and soulful breath
Must end in silence that is death.
Waters of one pure stream,
Whose mountain birth and gleam
My infant home caressed;
A heart in eager quest
Of changelessness, beside
My bright symbolic tide
Sighs, “even here to me
Some grace is gone I once could see!”
O, other loves than these!
A woman fond to please
The breathing idol, man!
Then weariness began;
Love’s failures, clouds and fears;
Roses not roses of past years!

MISSIONARY GRAVES.
Under the trees,
Baobab, mango, palm,
The grand protecting trees
In wildernesses calm,
In islands of the seas,
In lands far apart,
Has slept each fervent heart.
Under the sky,
Day-dawn, and noon, and night;
When storms tend currents high,
When airs move soft and light,
Angel serenity,
Holds silence pure around,
Their mortal rest profound.
Lo! where they are,
‘Mid sands, and vines, and trees,
O’er all shines many a star,
And glory that Christ sees!
Where fell his soldiers far,
If not the regal rose,
Some gentle blossom grows.
Meek Coan* lies,
Where Mauna Loa’s crest
Uplifts old mysteries,
From green Hawaii’s breast;
Where rhythmic waves devise,
Requiems for Jesus’ child,
Whom earth nor man defiled.
Far from the East,
Truth’s conquering radiance streamed
On faith’s baptismal feast,
A mission banner blest
When first on Burmah gleamed;
All christian creeds and speech
Brave Judson’s fervor teach.
And who lie here?
In Afric’s western sands,
And fever atmosphere,
Interred by mourner’s hands,
With consecrating tear!
They who for Mendi sailed,
With youthful hearts unquailed.
No earthly loom
Has woven robes like theirs!
Not folded in the tomb,
They shine in glory-spheres;
Where seraphs gave them room,
Where pain, disease, and sin,
Can never enter in.
The Saviour spoke
The syllables these caught;
And as the mighty oak
Was once an acorn-thought,
All safe from tempest-stroke,
What truth has grown from seeds
Of missionary deeds!

TRINITY CHIMES.
From the past,
Through the soul
Soft they roll;
“Come at last;
Gone at last;
Nevermore,
Evermore.”
Hear their braided symphony;
“Ye shall die,
All shall die.”
“On the stony floor tread firm;
You shall crush no helpless worm,
Decay is under
And around;
Ringing wonder
Above the ground,
We shall ring
Many a Spring.
Change surrounds us;
Change below us;
We shall change
When all things strange
Congregate
And settle fate,
Wither, fade, dissolve or crumble,
Time when every soul shall humble.”
Ring again!
Dividing strain;
Mark the voiceless passing
Of Autumnal hours;
Signal truth and love surpassing;
Is this moment ours?
“All the struggle and the bustle
Of the counting-room and pave,
Give our messengers no rustle,
We are chiming for the grave.”
Sound again;
Subdue the clangor;
Soften pain,
And vanquish anger;
“We traveled from the star-crowned past;
We cannot stay,
We must away
While weds the future to the past.”
Soft as music for the dying;
Solemn as tablets fallen, lying;
Ringing, pealing,
Mystery revealing,
Mystery concealing,
They’re not weary
For they’re eternal;
Time’s not dreary
To thought supernal,
Cadences that chime,
Monotones for time,
With melody repeated
They hold secreted
The psalms of Trinity,
And echo through the pensive soul.

ONCE IN A HUNDRED YEARS.
Once in a hundred years,
Once in a hundred years,
For human weal and woe
Numbers array them so:
Once in a hundred years,
In shadow and light,
In daytide and night.
Signs by star measures told,
Ere earth hid deep her gold,
Or Eden’s rivers ran,
Before the life of man,
Ere history grew old,
For land and sea
Waited there for thee.
Not dreamily between
Things seen or unseen,
Of soul, and breath, and thought,
Witness of all that’s wrought,
A form of noble mien,
Commands us “pray
And hope alway!”
Ask now the stranger year
Why numbers thus appear!
In measures each the same,
In outline one, in name,
A century brought them here,
Mystic to you and me,
The future bears their key.

SUMMER PERFUMES.
Once by a rose, or violet,
Or lily, prophecy
Some eyes might read,—forget
The idyl myth who may,
Then came deficiency;
With spring returns of purple bloom,
‘Twas asked, “Where went the sweet perfume?
We must have lost the way!”
Who never thought, “perpetually
Blossoms will breathe the same
Rich incense, blended from the sky,
With sometimes altered name!”
Reject the myth, who may—
One flower, the faithful heliotrope,
Is changeless for the gentle hope
Of pilgrim on his way.
The lilies of the echo vale,
By “culture” undeformed,
Ring never in dolorous wail,
Though winds have round them stormed;
Believe the myth, who may—
Soft odors of the vine, unseen,
How linger they our moons between,
From June to winter day!
Magic of honeysuckle balm,
Wealth of the summer air,
Potent a grieving soul to calm,
Love silent to declare,
Believe the myths, I say—
Distil such sweets and wines as these,
Man, if you can, from plants or trees,
If your enchantments may.
Like any luscious fruit of earth,
Flavored for Eden food;—
A benison of lesser worth
Had God not called it good,
Labor a long life’s day.
So give its subtle fragrance; then,
“Agamemnon, king of men!”
Your fellows all shall say.
SONNET.
“And there shall be no night there.”
Rev. xxii. 5.
No night in Paradise! No night
Where Jesus lives, and waits
For his dear friends to come, through bright,
Golden and pearly gates!
No night of wintry storm, or cold,
Of pathless, drifting snow;
No sunless shadow on the fold
He loved so well below!
No night by tempest lightnings riven,
None such as chill the poor,
When summer and its bloom is driven
Behind the autumn’s door.
No night for hearts to weep, or mourn,
And wish joy’s morn to come;
Nor any day that seems forlorn,
In that immortal home.
No night for stars to shine afar,
No place for changing moon,
Where Jesus is the noon-day star
And all the hours are noon!
No night, because He is the sun
Of righteousness and grace;
The holy and forgiving one,
Image of God’s own face!

SONNET.
Happy the favored souls who know thy sigh,
Maid of imagination’s voiceless song,
Who smilest on thy lovers in a throng!
Happy who feel thy pitying breath a tie
Binding them to thine immortality,
While they may live thy ideal sweets among,
And beauty’s tender worship thus prolong,
Dreaming of love’s forever; ’tis to live
Where pressed rose harvests fill the silver urns
With otto, where Damascus’ waters glide;
Or where vast fields of lilies, crushed, condense
Nectar, that lit by passion’s torches burns
To thrilling ecstasy, which purified
Unites the seraph’s with the mortal’s sense.

COLUMBIA’S SYMBOLS—TRAILING ARBUTUS.
Dews, when ye silent gather,
In halcyon or windy weather,
As light as any feather
Spangle the Mayflower o’er!
Stars, down between the branches
Send your fair avalanches,
And sunshine, when it dances,
Soft on this blossom pour!
Modest, with beauty’s yearning,
Your coronet unspurning,
Its candle will be burning
For liberty and power.
In all the veiled hereafter,
Though fools may scoff in laughter,
And Envy scale Truth’s rafter,
‘Twill bloom as heretofore.
Know this, pretentious ages!
Give ear, ye solemn sages,
Forbear, storm-ire that rages,
This bloom prints Freedom’s lore!
Arbutus graceful trailing,
Amid brown mosses vailing,
Thy pink-wax clusters hailing,
Thy fragrance, we adore!
Unfolding fair and slowly,
Hardy, profuse, and lowly,
On mountain bosoms holy,
Gem of Columbia’s shore!
Adorning spring-time early,
When young leaves crisp and curly
Defy the frost king surly,
We love thee more and more!
Mayflower! Anew we name thee!
A nation now we claim thee,
No dastard e’er defame thee,
Symbol forevermore!
Rose, thistle and the clover,
The fleur de lis, that rover,
These of the ensigns over
The sea, we ask no more.
And not deny the Donor
With all her grace upon her,
And not deny the donor
Who brought the ship to shore?
Though all the lands have wondered,
And all the tyrants thundered,
We count our years an hundred,
And time shall count them more.

AEOLIAN DIALECTS.
Man frames no language, owns no key
To interpret these;
The wide and wild, blue-templed sea,
The whispering trees,
Alone have voice—solemnity
And ecstasies,
To echo and articulate the changeful wind.
Nature refuses, sovereign young,
And regent old,
Proud mastery of the mystic tongue,
Not overbold.
For Babylonian willows hung
With harps were told
Silence to keep when thought stirred zephyrs in the mind.
These strophes never mortal lips
Wedded to sense;
Such music as in sorrow dips
The consequence
Of happiness in pale eclipse
Of hence and whence,
Is wrought when wake the voices of the sibyl wind.
Shamrock.
What meanest thou that listest oft
Thyself to praise?
Moaning, intoning, murmuring soft,
“Ancient of Days!”
Bearing no oriflamme aloft,
Counting no bays,
Whose elements no Paracelsus’ gift could bind!
Alas! the soul that never sighed,
Alone with God,
When fierce, unharnessed winds defied
The sky and sod,
The starry universe to guide
In ways untrod—
Imagination, venturous, strong-willed and—blind.
Spirits of Air! Why do you speak
In tempest tones?
Philology in vain may seek
Your sighs and moans,
Counting its rules and clauses weak,
Building its thrones
Of chance for history and time to leave behind.
Phantoms of buried loves, forget
Save in the night.
Tell us, if such indeed ye’re not!
Tell us in sight
Of truth, the far and storm-loved spot
Where in chaste delight
Ye were conceived content and terror to unbind.

A CHILD’S SONG.
Spring! spring!
‘Tis sweet to sing
Thy praises!
Sweet, songful spring,
So soon to bring
Thy daisies!
Spring! spring!
Soft opening
Thy roses!
The breeze’s wing
Thee welcoming,
Reposes!
Spring! spring!
The glad birds sing,
And lasses!
And up they spring,
Almost to sing
The grasses!
Spring! spring!
Blue-bells will ring,
So slender!
Lambs gamboling,
Rejoice in spring,
So tender!
Spring! spring!
O thou dost bring
Us beauty!
Serenest spring,
O help us sing
Of duty!
Spring! spring!
‘Tis bliss to sing
Forever
Of joys that bring
No sinful thing,
No, never!

BABY’S FLOWERS.
Who wonders that the baby
Wearies of blossoms sweet?
What is so sweet as roses?
Ah! baby is as sweet.
She pulls the fragrant petals,
But fails to count them all;
She tries to place the leaflets,
And murmurs that they fall.
If we, like thoughtless baby,
Waste precious Lenten hours,
Their blessings will return not,
To bring us heavenly flowers.
But if our brightest rose
To some tired hand we give;
Denying self for those
Who labor hard to live,
We will not weary half so soon
As baby with her buds of June.

DANDELIONS AND DEAD LEAVES.
We gather dandelions in May,
And in October’s latest day,
Which were the brightest who shall say?
Which longest shown, Ruth, can you tell?
The Earth bears all her blossoms well;
How pleasant it is on earth to dwell!
We saw green leaves too, of the May,
A canopy above our way,
Nor did we think they’d fade away?
But when the grand October came,
And maple leaves grew red as flame,
Ruth, dear, you asked, “Are they the same?”
Ah! yes, when autumn paints the sky,
And faded leaves drop silently,
Let us remember, fair things die!
But O how oft they come again,
With spring’s soft airs and gentle rain;
No flower or leaf can die in vain;
God ripens fruit from blossoms dead;
Gives wiser years when youth’s are fled;
New life from death, as Jesus said.
So we from Earth shall surely rise,
To live with Him beyond the skies,
In happy, holy, Paradise.
NOT TOO SOON.
Ofttimes “too soon”—
(Of some when dead
This hath been said)
Meridian comes;
When mortals sail
Before the gale,
At morn, or noon,
To far-off homes.
And oft they sail
In anxious mind,
‘Tis said perchance,
Lest gales of wind
Too soon prevail;
And on, and on,
When these are gone,
Earth storms advance.
So on and on,
Long cycles flee,
And tides the same,
Of life:—of fame,
Of joy and woe,
Of night and noon,
“Come in,” out-flow,
A mighty sea
Of mystery!—
And souls “too soon”
Saith love, are gone.
But ask the flood
Of life and Time,
If this be true?
Answers that come
Will be sublime,
If you, and you,
Have understood;
Then not too soon,
At morn or noon,
Or ebb-tide low,
Or coast-wave flow,
From surf and shore,
God’s evermore
Will bear you home.

A NIGHT THOUGHT.
(My sister’s last poem.)
We close our eyes—the mystery is deep,
This unexplained phenomenon of sleep.
“Sister of Death!” not so to me it seems;
Death never tells to living ears its dreams,
As our companions may. Upon our shore
Of being, would He just this little more
Permit that man might learn, ‘mid peace and strife,
Meaning of Earth’s precarious forms of life;
The certainty of why, and how and whence,
Created we are to die, or wander hence!