Plays and poems
^^^•SfrSat:^^^ •: Elfeasfi^^L^Sw • >*• , , *^fc -^' • <iJ*lE IfP&pr^ «la-.*Gi*t*K.«S PLAYS AND POEMS BY DON MARK LEMON. SAN FRANCISCO: LOUIS ROESCH CO., PRINTERS, 1899. COPYRIGHTED 1899 BY DON MARK LEMON. IJGUjat {0 wtthuttt yvintev'a ink? 393822 PREFACE. M HE work of a young man of one-and-twenty — indeed, HARRIET KKNYON was written when I was barely twenty — I cannot hope that these PLAYS AND POEMS will great- ly please or widely interest. However, I believe, the catholic reader will find the volume of such merit as will repay perusal. No doubt the critical will censure me, and rightly, for the lax metre of certain parts of the PLAYS, yet I purposely (though I now believe, unwisely) wrote the PL AYS as they are published, and must be censured rather for perverted judgment than for any great lack of metrical skill. While either is to be condemned, the former may be corrected, but the latter, hardly. The poem to the Flag is fashioned after Shelley's 1 'SKYLARK. " D. M. I,. ;M: o o o COLUMBIAN ODE. Lo! within the West, Like a sun ye burn, In a splendor drest That the blind discern. The Fearful never were thy prophets, Columbia eterne. Peace found thee among States of Liberty; War has left thee sung By the guiltless free; And triumph calls to triumph through all thy harps of [ melody. Thou art free and strong, And the Light is thine: God has known thee long; Man shall know thy shrine: And where thy spirit is there is a better way divine. Thou 're a prophecy Unto the belated; Hymning Liberty To the subjugated Until the vasty deserts blossom for the Liberated. On thy front sublime — While the spheres are pealing Down the sweep of time — Like the dawn revealing, Now flames that leavening light which through the ages [ has been stealing. On the sacred shrine Of thy sovereignty, Fall that light divine, Which may ever be, That beats not on the throne but on the altars of Democ- [racy. Man's last work art thou, Shaping to God's thought: While the heavens bow, Thou' 11 not come to naught, For thou art builded of a prayer and wonderfully wrought. II Ye will teach the bound, By thy history, How the way is found Out of tyranny, Until their spirit is made one with the Spirit of Liberty. (Hark! the winds that rock Bring across the deep Sound of Freedom's shock, And the splendors leap From fields where burning Patriots sow to fields where a [People reap.) Ye will ever cherish Thy pure liberty, That it shall not perish From Man's history; Still as a prophet free — and go forth freeing and to free. Ye '11 teach us to know Peace the noblest art; Yet, against thy foe, None will stand apart, With days and nights untroubled with the Nation's [troubled heart. Ye will weigh the Dead, And the Unborn weigh ; Hold the glory fled lyess than morning gray; Nor will thy Thinkers hold the dawn shall stand against [ the day. Ye' 11 press on the dawn, In the vanguard still; Nor put good in pawn 'Gainst the fear of ill; And when Truth's lightning beckons ye' 11 respond from [every hill. 13 (Still a glory swims In the prophet's ken With a light that dims That which is on men: Empires and Persuasions end, but God-like truths begin.) Ye will shield the right As ye did in youth: Ye will love the light, And will meet the truth: Nor will ye raven down the darkness with the bigot's [tooth. Ye will look before: Ye will look ahead: Ye will weigh all lore, All the Masters said: Nor will thy Thinkers give a living issue to the Dead. Ye will bruise the chain Hedging Spirit in, — Want and human pain, Tyranny and sin — Until the grave shall lie beyond the work that is within. Know thy daughters are Mothers of the Free; Woman still thy star And thy destiny; And as her brow is wide or cramped so Heaven's face [shall be. 14 Ye will cherish Art: Music ye' 11 esteem: Beauty and its part, Ye will not misdeem; But give thy youth to Spirit and bring forth the sacred [dream. Ye will greet the Bard, That he hymn the State, Or on pleasant sward Pipe with heart elate, Or trumpet through a clarion pen the roll-call of thy Great. (Still Posterity Sees through Poets' eyes: Half of history In the Poet dies: Events pass by but music lingers, and a song is wise.) Ill Glory shall be thine Stooping to the low; Glory as divine As from truth doth flow; The glory that has found thee free and that shall keep [thee so. Empire shall be thine, Empire to redeem; That pure rule divine That shall still beseem The star of Empire hung aloft an Emancipator's dream. 15 Law shall spring of thee; Law that educates, Law that 's prophecy Of the self-mandates: Till honor through the law 's the crowning glory of thy [States. Love shall brood o'er thee And all discord quell, Pouring charity, From a living well, Upon the mountains and savannas where the Unfettered [dwell. Thine shall be the faith- Light and Liberty; And all thy Spirit saith Shall shine outwardly, Till dawns that day when men fulfill themselves fulfilling . [thee. MY COUNTRY. O, my Country, Art thou strong ? Then I have need of thee : O, my Country, Art thou weak ? Then thou hast need of me. Be my worship And my work, And thee I'll chief adore ; Not that I love The nations less But love my Country more. 16 "OLD GLORY." Hail to thee, " Old Glory" ! Yet banner never waved Like to thee in story, Nor never freemen saved A nobler standard with the blood of heroes laved. In the light of Mars, The foemen's flag thou nearest; Towering with thy stars, Still thou over-peerest, And cheering still advance and advancing ever cheerest. In the vanguard's brightening Where Victory commands, Stormed by shell and lightning, Thou clap thy mighty hands, Like to a winged captain whom no foe withstands. The battle's rolling blast Hides thy triplicity; Like the sun o'ercast Above a stormy sea Thou art unseen, yet I see where heroes die for thee. 17 Again the battle rack With thy seven bars is bright, As, when storm is black, Upon the fearful night The crooked lightning breaks and heaven melts with light. Where thou'll wave we dream not; What flag has waved like thee ? O'er the seas there stream not Such lights to Liberty As from thy stars descend in burning prophecy. Like the battle steed, With neck clothed in thunder, Pawing at th' mighty lead And swallowing th' ground under; Rejoicing to lead a People slavery's chains to sunder. Like an eagle riding Upon the whirlwind blast, In its strength abiding Until the stoim is past, And on the crags the thunder-bolts are chained at last. Like the morning star, Aloft a promised land, Streaming from afar Upon some earnest band, And bringing with it airs by Freedom's hymn thrice fanned. 18 the sun at zenith First seen by him born blind, Grasping all it meaneth Unto a soul confined A lifetime from the common light of human kind. organs making New music in the hills, Melodies awakening Beneath harmonious quills, The wind against thy folds aerial out-thrills. Teach us, glorious birth, The light which is on thee: Nor upon the earth, Nor yet within the sea, Is else such living light and pure intensity. The refulgent sun, Or evening's silver car, 'Gainst thy unfurled legion, Like empty glories are; A splendor fit to move before a slave afar. What fire is the fountain Of thy prophetic light ? What star upon the mountain ? What morrow in midnight ? What secret writing in the face of heaven bright ? 19 In thy awful glory A bondman cannot be: Ye have slaves in story, But not in prophecy: The fathers ye enslaved have shrouded sons in thee. Floating free or furled, In peace or fearful war, What promise for the world Still prophecy thou afar In that high audience illustrious of the morning star? In the lit serene, Seen at that starry height, Still thy memories glean Fraternity from might, That when the inspired prophet bodes he bodes of light. Emblem of the brave, Hung be the heavens with thee; While the hills concave Bruit chants to Liberty — Our mightiest songs are those that hymn the Nation's free. Wave, forever wave, Within the Master's sight, While the free and brave Hymn " God and Equal Right/' And take those words like suns and live within their light. SONNET. Dishonored may he stand who shall delay In his oppressed or tyrant-troubled land; Who shall not, in her bondage, raise a hand To strike her chains incarnadine away. And thrice dishonored he who shall betray His land's election to a venal band, Or light in peace foul Discord's ready brand, Flaming the State to war for Caesar's pay. Our Country's call is also Heaven's call, When tyrants have abused her sacred right: Her free election is the armature Which God has given man against the might And violence of that old feudal thrall: Her peace is Heaven's peace when she is pure. LIBERTY. Republics do not freemen make, Nor Despotisms slaves ; For they alone are free that forsake The license which betrays. But they who do subdue are free The wildness of their will ; But he is the son of Liberty That 's Virtue's bondman still. Yea, from within is liberty ! The which outlives the grave. Thus Despotisms have their free, Republics have their slave. 21 ODE TO ADMIRAL DEWEY, O let his song be sung again, His glorious song of victory ; Sweetest in the ears of free-born men, And all compact of liberty : O sing it o'er, ye Muse, and sing it loftier for the Free. Say how our Chieftain met the Foe, Leading his brave, determined men ; And how he dealt the open blow Against the Spaniard there and then ; And how he struck once for the sunken Maine nor struck [again. Say how he met the Spanish host, There where a blow 'gainst tyranny (Along that tyrant-governed coast) Was twice a blow for liberty, Dealt in that just and perfect cause that its own prayer [could be. The Enemy comes on, and lo ! Down from Olympia's conscious gun, A cloud of fire leaps on that Foe, That lifting, when the field is won, Reveals a new and western nation lighted by Freedom's [sun. The Enemy comes on — to sink, Or charge but once — and charge to fly : He hangs on deep destruction's brink And strikes at Freedom's star — to die ; While Freedom's star, now large as a sun, flames in the [morning sky. The Foe strikes once for tyranny, To falter then and bow him low ; Our Chief strikes thrice for liberty, Gathering strength from blow to blow ; And from his Flag-ship's bridge he looks the last on [Freedom's Foe. Above her groans he hears the sorrow Of Spain's ten million slaves that bleed : He lays his ear unto the morrow And hears the music of his deed, Hears that deep burst triumphal and exalted chant of [the Freed. So falls the Foe for sins of State ; His race is closed, Freedom's begun. Making a way for equal fate, Spain's mad and losing race is run Even along that shore she galled, while sinks the [darkened sun. 23 And now the victorious battle 's o'er ; Heaven takes on its pristine blue, The waves, untroubled, flood the shore, The airs their purity renew ; The splendid deed is done that no American would undo. Then hail ! all hail our Chieftain there ! To whom duty and victory are one ; All hail to Fame and Honor's heir ! Whose glory rose with the golden sun ; The foremost spirit of the fields that Retribution won. To poets, he's a song from the sea, Whene'er their pulses with freedom throng ; To freemen, one with Liberty ; An upraised hand against the wrong ; And we'll take Washington from our heart ere Dewey [from our song. DIRGE. Sailors lay me in my grave When the moon is on the wave; Sea-weed for my winding sheet, Coral at my head and feet, Stars above their vigils keeping, Pale moon -beams upon me sleeping, Sea-bells o'er me tolling, tolling, Waters 'round me rolling, rolling, Rolling evermore. 24 THE BLOCKADE OF SANTIAGO* Not a word was spoke but the brief command Of the brave Lieutenant of the Merrimac ; Not a hero among the little band On the fading star of his hope looked back, As swiftly the collier, into the mouth of hell, The dauntless ministers of Liberty bore, With Freedom and Hope behind them and fell El Morro Castle and the Spaniards before. " Into the Channel and block up the port, And the death will do us reverence "— But the distant guns of the enemy retort, Clouding the fire of those lips intense. Onward, yet onward, the Merrimac rides, And the dunest thunders of Spain wrap it round ; But his robes shall be robings of glory, who bides Till the Channel is blocked to the bitter ground. On, on, where a hero can let Destiny slip ! And the wave is white with the ghost of a shroud, And the fires are trained in the hole of the ship, And El Morro hangs o'er like a thunder cloud. The fires are trained in the hole of the ship Where the mines were laid with no thought of the And the Eight have let their destiny slip [morrow ; Under the walls of Castle El Morro. 25 Kissing its burial, the collier divides, Yet proudly the flag of the Union waves o'er, Till, fearing the fate of her soldiers, she hides The stars of her victory 'neath the watery floor. But safe from the Merrimac's thunder-lapped side, On the flow of the shell-rent waters upborne, Under truced El Morro the heroes ride Who gave themselves up to glory that morn. To glory and to the Castilians' bars, Which have fallen like broken reeds away, For what deed was done in the Antillian Wars Like the fadeless deed of those Eight that day ? SONNET* Columbia, from my true judgment's birth, I loved thee ever and do love thee still ; And something have recorded of thy worth, Made musical what better minds made real. Yet love for thee has still been qualified With fearfulness that thou'rt imbued with wrong : Nor, though I warmly sing, mayest be denied An unrecorded pause behind the song. For thou ignoble riches hast up-laid, Which first He sends who would destroy, while Art Hath scarce the worship of hypocrisy. The music and the vision are betrayed — No god leaps up within thy artist's heart Creative through a nation's sympathy. 26 PEACE. Peace counts her host beneath the morning star ; Peace counts that host beneath the evening star :- The battle Spirit — still invisible, But filled with visible and fearful works — Which darkness loosened, when that April morn Sealed up its bloody edicts of revolt, Has fled afar into the wilderness, And Peace is come again, her fair large brow Illustrious with those far-beaming lights That play around the golden morning tops Where spirits mild by spirits have been seen. Phalanx and squadron and battalion fade, Like some huge bulk seen distant in a dream Before the bright approach of clement Morn : The navies melt away and birds of calm, O'er that chaffed flood and chaos of their track, Circle in ever-radiating light ; The soldiers and the captains sleep the sleep, No more a toy to war's calamity, Who fell with light upon them from the Cause ; The living soldier also has his rest, With dreams of love and wakings of renown. The larger hope is come ; the flowing arc Of that still clouded circle grown apace That alien lands have glimpses of the whole, Whose fullness is the measure of our race : The mantle o'er our growth is cast aside, Which was in secret, as the larger growth 27 Was ever since that shapeless Chaos fell, Flamed o'er by Light from out her silent morn, And Titan of the elder world we spring Perceived where seemed no puissance eterne. State-called, the powers, potentates and thrones, Out of the West, return into the East Which gathered in their spirits astonied When deep laid was the future's corner-stone Blazoned with that one word, " Columbia/' Whose shadow on the earth's high places falls : While " I/iberty" is written first o'er every State. COLUMBIA AND THE PHILIPPINES. The Lord who made thee strong had made thee free, Upright, and unseduced that ye should flame The sword of Heaven o'er Iberia's shame, Till she die into light and liberty: Nor armament nor wide expanse of sea Didst stay thy chastising hand divine, nor tame Thee, O Columbia, who, in His name, Didst blot with thine own blood that history Of sacrilege. But O, Right Hand of God, Why tremblest thou to lead this lesser race Out of its darkness! Wilt thou be His rod And not His angel? Shall His patient face Be veiled before a Nation that hath trod But half the upward way which He did trace? 28 ODE. Come, O come, bright Spirit, Mellifluous son of light ; Thou who shalt inherit, With thy free birthright, A starry crown of genius gloriously bright. Come, thou Poet golden, Nursling of the Nine, Spirit unbeholden, Sire of mighty line, Unborn, yet not unprophesied, come forth divine. Thou to whom be given, With immortal bays, That last gift of heaven, Which is chief always, To love thy native land and sing its perfect days. Come, thou Bard supreme, Who shall hymn the Free ; Thou whose chiefest theme Shall be Liberty, The Democracy that is and Brotherhood to be. L,o ! an Epic splendid Doth thy genius wait, — The Heroes that defended Liberty's young State ; The unwritten Epic of the Constitution's Great, 29 Those immortal Founders That have gone before ; Those creant Expounders Whom we do adore : Those old heroic Dreamers who shall dream no more. Lo ! a Drama stately Waits thy Spirit afar,— Civil strife that lately Struck at Freedom's star ; Fulfilling union thro* disunion, harmony through war. That great War forerun By the civic pen, Which twice was fought and won In the Master's ken, — On the fields incarnadine and in the souls of men. Lo ! a glorious Song Waits thee on the height, — Those sweet bursts, that throng E'en the pulse of night, Of Liberty rejoicing in the main of light. That transcendent paean Pleasing unto Him, Sweeter than the strain Of vocal Seraphim ; That gladness of the Free which is Columbia's hymn. Come, O come, bright Spirit To this pleasant sward ; Thou who shalt inherit Freedom's master chord : Come thou in the poet's own good time, beloved Bard. Come, thou Avatar, Glorious Son of Song, Thou whose golden star Is o'er Olympus hung, Where the sacred Nine are leading thee from the morning [tops among. SONNET. The Poet stood upon the bivouacked fields of fear ; (Where Death had reared his dark pavilion on the [height And looked out o'er a kingdom girt with lurid light, Which War had made him heir to as his loved compeer.) The morning star came down and, in the white dawn Faded the starry constellations on his sight, [clear, Even as past away in multitudinous flight The spirits of those thousands slain in battle drear. But, Lo ! another star is in the firmament — The golden sun is bowing the blue East with light ; And, in the sovereign morn, the Poet's heart is bent To hymn a glorious resurrection ere the night Of that great multitude which past before the spheres : So hymns the Poet's heart divine with its stops of hu- [man fears. 31 COLUMBIA. She is sowing in her mighty youth The first seeds of decay : She has paid a guilty price in gold That blood may not un-pay : She has flamed the Orient to war For imperial Caesar's pay. She is departing, departing, Departing from the truth. She has ta'en Jehovah's name in vain With the name of Destiny : Her free-born People runneth back The path of Liberty, And bring again the lightless age Of human tyranny. She is departing, departing, Departing from the truth. She is summoning Oppression's Host By the bell on Liberty Hall : And the starry flowers of Liberty Are dead and withering all Wherever the ironed and bloody tread Of ignoble Empire doth fall. She is departing, departing, Departing from the truth. 32 She is teaching Liberty's first lesson Shall be Oppression's war : While Liberty the hills among Where rose her morning star, Long lingering, looks her last upon The white-domed Capitol afar. She is departing, departing, Departing from the truth. Lighted by the restless planet Mars, Her drama doth unfold ; Freedom is widowed of her sons, While Honor groweth cold, And like unto a scroll played out The Constitution 's upr oiled. She is departing, departing, Departing from the truth. THE POLITICIANS. Look on this politician, then on this, As like as Judas' to Iscariot's kiss. Which is the greater knave ?" men ask in vain, Since both are damned and will be damned again. And when, in opposition, they fight for pelf The Devil seems divided 'gainst himself. 33 ODE TO PAULINE. I. Thou art not dead, Pauline, nor I despair: Thy spirit was not given to the urn. Cold was thy body, cold thy forehead fair, And in thine eyes no more the light did burn ; — Emptied of life — all but thy golden hair, Where death was softened till it seemed as sleep — Thou lay in pallid robes on rigid bier : Yet thine immortal spirit was not there ; 'Twas but its vesture o'er which we did keep A blinded watch through all the darkness drear. II. Thou art not dead, Pauline ; 'tis Death that's dead. Within yon marble vault, thy sweet form lies, But thine immortal spirit has long fled Unto that nearer Land than those dim skies. Faith was not shaken by thy father's tears — Tears ! these upon our bridal morn he shed, Yet we did not eternal farewell take. Nay, Love, my heart is empty of all fears ; He wept that thou wast a bride again — not dead — The bride of Death that would in Heaven wake. 34 III. Thou visit rue in other ways than dreams : Spirit to Spirit sometimes do we meet ; And oft thy face, in visionary gleams, lyooks out upon me from thy hidden seat. Thy very portrait is alive to me, Soft breathing words of tenderness and love. I cannot stir abroad amid the flowers But that the risen lark sings hymns of thee, As he doth soar in golden light above And pour one spirit through the vernal hours. IV. Nearer than earth the heavens are to me — One who has never lost in mortal night The sweet ideal of immortality, That star that dawns upon our being's height — And, L,ove, the air more blessed grows and clear As I draw nearer to thy dwelling bright, And to the shore of that immortal sea : And soon, Pauline, without a doubt or fear, I'll come and dwell amid the fields of light, And ever know that ye shall ever be. 35 ODE TO THE SPIRIT OF MAY. Child of Light, awake to love 'Neath the bloomy almond grove: Half in shadow half in light Hope, in azure robes bedight, Whispers that the springs are thawed: Fancy, star-eyed, peeps abroad, Casting buds of white and gold On the waters from the wold: While the white swan, with his dove, Stately turns to lakes above. Dropping languor from the South, Drowsy airs of dewy drouth Stir the verdure o'er the lea Now a sea of melody: And the painted butterfly, With enchanted curtained eye, Rideth on the golden swell Of the tincted asphodel; And in its winged haunted view Morn is flowers and sweet dew. Now the mountain lake has got Crystal old romance has not, Where the ousel tunes his call To the swaying waterfall: And the poet on the mount Breathes the evening's starry count, When the crystal spheres of night Lap themselves in golden light, And teach new heavens how to glow Upon the path of Love below. 36 Child of Light, awake to love Him who wanders through the grove, While the heavens far and true Take a tender' rarer blue. He has waited long for thee At the gates of melody: He has sung with faithful breath That there is no dream but death : He has sung ye would arise With the day-spring in thine eyes. Now, his heart a casket is, And a poet's gifts are his; Clustered verse and linked rhyme, — Sorrows pearls in golden time — Tears that never more are tears, Fears that never more are fears, But have suffered change divine, In the poet's melodious line, And are gems of vocal fire Such as hung on Apollo's lyre. Awake, arise, and haste all lone Where the fountains make sweet moan, Quired by spirits of the vale Wandering on the vernal gale. Long thy poet stays for thee With his gifts of melody; And will woo thee in the light Of the morn or noon -day bright, Or by some liquid twilight fount, Or Dian on a silver mount. 37 AN INVITATION. Come away, sweet maiden, To a brighter clime, Where the air is laden With the dewy thyme ; Where olives scent the orange, the orange the golden lime. Where a light of flowers Leads the spirit on Of the golden hours, And from lawn to lawn Exhales all night in musk that overbrims the dawn. Where the stars are golden, And the moments seem Brighter than the olden Times by Eden's stream ; And love is but awakening to a sweeter dream. Where at dawn up-springest Birds of Paradise, Which the deep blue wingest Till bright Venus rise And Philomel scales in song the pure cerulean skies. Never harm befall thee In that valley blest : Never aught shall gall thee, Loveliest and Best ; The conscious rose shall shed its dews upon thy breast. 38 Spirits shall adore thee From their hidden seat : Spirits go before thee, While their blessings sweet, As thick as pond-sown lilies, troop around thy feet. In the dewy morning, Love shall kneel by thee, Thy bright hair adorning With all rarity Of leaf and blossom from the bloomy almond tree. In the golden even, Love shall join thy song, Till the airs of heaven With sweet cadence throng ; While mocking-birds that waking joyance shall prolong. Hasten then, sweet maiden, To that happy land : By this heart, love-laden, By that melting hand, I'll make thee queen of all bright April's bow hath [spanned. 39 VIRGINIA. Her look is like the light that comes and goes On golden mists that blind a summer moon: Her eyes are tender as the fond twilight That in the east opes wide a vesper casement And hangs enamoured o'er the whispering sea: Her smile is fresher than the April bow New bent in heaven o'er the faery land: Her step is a new song before my door. I walk alone beneath the twilight palms Hesperus hung, and aye she haunts my side With absence sweeter than an angel's presence; While, from yon moon-gilded magnolia, The mocking-bird out poureth his full heart To Dian swooned upon a silver sea. AN EXHORTATION. O! be swift, my soul, to enter through the portals of the [dawn, Where but God has gone before and with His hands the [bolts withdrawn. O! my Spirit's ears, awaken to the music of the spheres: O! mine eyes, look unto God for God through all the [ corning years. O! be jubilant, my feet, to tread the dark uneven path Where He's sowing men to reap the Angel in the after- [ math. 40 O! my heart, think not the leaven and the light divine [are vain, That the better moment is a lie and man is dust again; But, my spirit, be persuaded thou mayest triumph over [dust, That the heavens look upon a swift re-union of the Just. O! my soul, whate'er ye make your doubts or from what [faith ye turn, See ye make thy brother and integrity thy deep concern. Tender bend the heavens o'er him and the grave is sweet [ beneath Who hath labored still for others and hath worn a spotless [ wreath. And if ye shall find no new truth let thy strength sustain [an old, Till thy shield is taken from thee and thy sword rusts in [the mold. O! my spirit, labor jointly in that battle 'gainst the wrong, IvOosening down the sweep of time an avalanche of light [and song, While the works that make men free are leading Earth [ into His dawn, And the Worker's hand is touching robes of glory He [hath on. THE IDLE AND DISSOLUTE RICH MAR He toils not, neither does he rest, Nor blesses others, nor is blest : Most heavy 'tis to see, More grievous yet to be. Each morn the golden sun returns, But not his simple task that earns Both bread and appetite, As with a double might. His pleasures are of Fever's train, And leave his heart forespent with pain : His griefs have left him wrought, That patience should have taught. He palters in Ambition's name ; Had lost his blush ere found his fame : And honor 's oft o'er-leaped For gains as lightly kept. Yet soon to him 'tis evidenced That honest toil, unrecompensed, Is more, an hundred fold, Than guilty works with gold. He neither tills nor sows the land ; And first ashamed of his, own hand In labor, next enroll — Ashamed of his own soul. His hands are gloved and soft and white, Nor yet have toiled or day or night ; But hands of soft repose Shall sow no fragrant rose. Shall raise no temple stones to God, Nor strike the rock with Plenty's rod ; Shall build no ship of steel To guard his Country's weal. The Spring, with all her star-linked days, Those golden keys to fertile ways, Shall never, from the loam, Unlock his harvest home. For he has never tilled the sod, Nor been joint-laborer with God In bringing harvest time, When earth is sweet with thyme. No birds of eve or dawning sing In trees whose seeds his hands did bring. Shall spring no grassy beds In that long way he treads. With all his wealth he shall be poor, For Home, that haven something more Than Country and but less Than Heaven, shall not bless. And Health shall have, on every hour, An unfurled wing, and fly his power ; Nor scarce shall be a hope Though doctors hourly cope. 43 Nor shall he leave his children wealth, Who shall not leave them hardy health : 'Tis an empty testament If parent health is spent. Nor he is blest who leaves behind The honor of a gifted mind, Yet leaves a feeble child To mourn its birth un mild. And what is life to live and know Man's better thoughts, that burn and glow, Condemn that false estate On which his soul doth wait. THE IDLE RICH MAN WHO DWELLS IN A CITY. He shall not know how near unto the Poor, That labor in the fields, the Father is ; Nor rest at even by his cottage door And feel God's providence is also his. The dew shall fall, but not upon his field : The night shall come, nor lull his fold to rest : The rain descend, and all its sweetness yield, Nor glisten on his meadow's silver vest. He shall not know the Seasons of the year ; The tender Spring-time hath no blade for him, Within the Summer is no rip'ning ear, The Autumn hath no sheaf with golden rirn. 44 For him the fold's dumb lips shall never move ; Nor, in the Autumn, shall the birds with song Follow God's providence from grove to grove, As they fly Southward where the sunbeams throng. Above no fields he sowed with golden grain, In hope of harvest, shall the bow be bent, A covenant that there is cease of rain In heaven and the golden sun is sent. To him the dew, the sunlight, and the rain, Shall seem no Father's gift unto his child, To ripen all his fields of tender grain, And fill his trees with fruit and foliage mild. The Evening Star shall never light him home And enter through his door a Presence bright : Nor shall the Morning Star, from heaven's dome, Be unto him a herald and a light. He shall not dwell within his father's cot, But ever journey from his father's grave : To wander o'er the earth shall be his lot, For Home is that sweet gift which Labor gave. THEODOSIA. Thou wast the light behind My countenance ; Thou wast the music In my soul. I had been dwelling in Thy radiance — Now the dim waters O'er thee roll. 45 SONNETS. Hazel Viola, five sweet years and thee Didst tread those banks of asphodels that bring The little maiden, 'neath seraphic wing Shielded, to earthly cot; and thy wild glee That leaps the hours through all moody-free, Thine eyes of soft accent, and locks that fling A charm upon a charm, and hands that cling, Thou stole from cherubim. So when on thee Mine eyes, that to the heart are melted through, In tender lingerance rest, I fondly write — This is a bud that springs from Paradise, Fed on its light and sweet untroubled dew That it shall never fade from loving sight, But dwell in guarded wa}rs 'neath perfect skies. O, heart o' mine, hast all thy love decayed, Untimely fallen in sweet Summer's front ! Thy love, Beloved, which Autumn needst arrayed In purple sheaf and made its special vaunt ? Hast all my gold been sunset without morn ? Love's balmy flower but the rose of Faith ? Hath Cupid's fields been sown to Dian's thorn ? And Love's sweet body changed to misty wraith ? O then, Beloved, thou loved too well to last ; This wild-fire love has burned thy heart away : Thou should have loved less madly in the past, So hadst thou loved me, dear my Love, for aye. Then, sweet, take heed ; and when thou love again O love me temperately, or love in vain. 46 O rare those melodies heard in a dream, Which move the wakened brain again to sleep, Dreaming in music's undefiled stream Once more the all-delighted spirit to steep : O rare the stirrings in the secret pipe Of him who makes new music in the land : O rare the nightingale when lips are ripe : O rare the morn which thrice the lark hath fanned ; But, Love, thy dulcet breath makes sweeter maze, Which, like a golden star low hung o'er thee, Searches thee out by many winding ways ; And passion, answering thy melodious glee, Lo, even from the west to east shall beat Immortal music 'gainst thy agate seat. O weary, way-worn pilgrim of this star, Forever seeking rest forever lost, Like some gray billow beating on that bar Whose magic sands no toiling tide e' er crost ; O ye who turn to dust as to a couch Which loving hands have spread in toil's respite, And, drawing 'round the marble curtain, crouch In dark Oblivion's immemorial night ; Ye still have been a dusty prophecy And image of my life when Hope is fled : Nor shall the thunders of that farther sea Rive the eternal privilege of the dead Should not the twain infinities hold fast That virgin glory which from earth hath past. 47 Lo, on thy quiet breast and rigid bier, Bedewed, bedight in pallid purity, And drowned in flood of weeping ecstacy, Faint lilies have been strewed in wreathed tier With spray of greenest ivy never sere; And, gathered to thy couch, all rarity Of bloomy Summer's sweet posterity Odorous memories breathe of old times dear. Ah, well we knew the parting ere you died, That all our prayers did less than peace behove; And fearfully was this wedded spirit tried To look with thee upon the flowers, Love, And know my hand must brush away their dew And bring them, heavily, thy grave to strew. O Love! O Life! O Death! yield up thy deeps And quench this immemorial thirst in me, Even as the root is quenched when Winter steeps In ever-pelting rain the hungered tree: 0 give my spirit drink till I am filled Of those dim waters which we call unto, Aloud and in secret, and will not be stilled Till we may drink as grasses drink the dew. 1 thirst, I fail, I fall, on deserts idle; My soul is faint with calling on the sea, Aloud and in secret, for the living well To quench this immemorial thirst in me; My soul is faint with calling for that draught Whose wells were choked ere yet their dews were [ sought. 48 Be Genius to my mind, thou evening sea, Which has been quietless since a power came And dwelt within as an abiding flame, Which makes the spirit something kin to thee — Inviolate, and as thy waters free That all the pride of empire cannot tame; (Bulwark, as in thy sands a fleeting name When thou roll in the thunders of thy glee.) Truth shall possess me, and my spirit be The mirror of the golden firmament; Beauty shall move upon me like the night Orion hung; grace shall abide with me; Immortal music shall be mine; and light Tender as twilight with clear waters blent. LO, o'er the keys the blind Musician bends ; Hath passed away a glory from his face, And darkness all his lashes interlace: To him no more the morn a herald sends Of golden season, nor the noonday lends Art to uplift his brow to nature's race And search the tides of flooding day, or trace Man or the sweet Companion him attends. Yet unto him beatitudes remain; A soul removed not dimmed, and art divine To search harmonious keys, though light shall fail, In home, in temple, or in sacred fane, And wake aloft the organ's yearning trine To those concordant sounds that lift the Veil. 49 Shakespeare, it is the chiefest praise of thine Thou' rt so commingled with our blood and brain We reckon not a time before thy strain Had filled the world with melody divine; For thou art even as the warm sunshine, Or as the dew or ever-falling rain, Which as a common part with life are ta'en, Without beginning — and without decline. But yet there was a time thy strain was not, When through the wide world it was unadored,- — Ere earth was tender and thou wast begot; And, since there was a time before thou soared, Shall not a poet-lover dream a new dream What time shall hail thy heir from some melodious [ stream. Ah, ah, Paulina ! my elected love, I cannot think thee false and angels true, For thou art one with that bright race above, And in thy hair 3Tet trembles Heaven's blue. Around thy feet the asphodels still cling ; The rose of Paradise is at thy breast ; And oft thou smilest as thou still heard sing The angels, audibly, among the Blest. Then come thee down, Beloved, unto the sea At even when the West is hung with gold : Music shall breathe, and when that music cease Thyself be sweeter music unto me. O come thee down, Beloved, and let me hold Thy heart again and know again that perfect peace. 50 Ah, well I know that hollow words will live When noble deeds are fallen by the way, And all that oft nobility may give Is but a lustre to a fleeting day; That fulsome volumes in skilled charact'ry Outlive a hero linked to radiant light; And deeds that knock at Heaven's gate may be Of dull oblivion ere the angels write. Yet rest I in a Providence divine To glorify the secret ways He trod When rotted is that pageantry of thine; And, when thy charact'ry with age is dim, His melting race will be a glorious hymn Written in spirit and published in God. Of immortality, which is the chief Of human hopes, — above all hopes how high- The greatest faith has moments which deny, The greatest doubt has moments of belief, Since none are certain whether life is brief, As oft it seems, or whether they who die An immortality doth glorify, Making our lamentation waste of grief. Yet still, despite the heavy doubts which crush, Despite no evidence which all men trust, Hope has a voice the ages cannot hush, Whispering this irrecoverable dust Doth close around a heavenly denizen : And he lives best who lives to live again. The gods chalk out the way when wise men run, For Seraphim can be no more than wise And love that mortal in whom wisdom lies. Who turns his back to night will face the sun ; And courage sees the honors to be won, While fear sees but the evils which arise. To work is to be free ; and with who plies A noble work eternity is begun. Then search out wisdom though it lead from wealth, For riches oft to madness are allied, While wisdom knows the secret place of health : Have courage, and all pains are qualified : Fear not, nor cease to plough life's stubborn sod, And at the furrow's end thou wilt see God. There is no future but the past — eternity Is still before, not after : none are free — not one : Ages before Man was, his puppet race was run : Greece rose in glory ere her own divinity, And Rome declined ere waked the Nilus hierarchy : Laughter and tears from the infinite fiat are won — The play was played before the mighty stage begun: Belief in human freedom is an old decree. So shall we live in this predestined world destined To be its glory or its honor or its shame, To wage a destined war against a destined wrong, To champion human freedom to the destined mind, Or lend to Fate addition of a fated name, A puppet in the multitudinous puppet throng. 52 THE PESSIMIST. " Though Heaven is o'ercast, it not recedes :" So spoke the Voice to him who had withdrawn His face from men's, as one who inward bleeds, Nor yet had turned to God ; but in the dawn He past unto the desert by the sea And made the mists his tent. His heart was dead : Dead was the hope and the divinity : Far off the music and the dream had fled. Unto the stars he is become a voice That crieth up at night of emptiness, — The utter emptiness of human choice ; Of blessings dubitable that do not bless ; Of love, where nothing sweet is long drawn out ; Of learning, seeking for all truths to find a doubt. SONNET TO WHISKY. Ye spirit of the Autumn's ripened grain, Ye liquid fruitfulness of wheat and rye, Ye pleasant runnings tinct with amber dye, Ye honey of the golden dew and rain, Ye sunshine which in Summer was up lain In oaten chalice 'gainst a lightless sky, Give me to drink that I may justify The estimation and the poets' strain. Ye malted stuff out of which fools are made, Whoso shall drink of thee may enter in The land dolorous by a sudden way ; All Hell lies there before, and gathering shade Is calling unto shade — What now will stay ? Here shall the man leave off and drink begin. 53 INVOCATION FOR A LINCOLN EPIC Descend, ye sacred Nine, whose sweet influence, From forth blue Olympus, harmonious numbers move. Ye who whilom inspired the Ionian Bard Who breathed the morning star o'er early Greece And gave to poetry the eternal years, Descend, and teach this steadfast mind and free To be a prophet with a backward eye ; To voice a love long lasting as the world ; To throne upon the tides of deathless song The foremost figure of the larger faith, — Him, whose all-gentle deed was without peer, Whose meaning was the greatest amongst these ; Descend, and teach the child of his great works, Within the diapason of a hymn, To limn his spirit on eternity Forever living for his fellow men, Forever laboring for his fellow men, Forever suffering for his fellow men, Forever dying for his fellow men. Genius of Poetry, dwell in this heart Where his large utterances are the pulse ; Make me a voice unto his living voice Which has become the gentleness of law ; To his intemporal deeds, make me the word Intemporal. And thou, O Spirit of love, That didst in him look upward to thy fount, Make me not less in love and charity, Not less in that large utterance of love, That I may speak from out his heart of heart, Who made the rod to blossom with his tears, And link Time unto Time with simple faith. 54 LOVE AT THE UNIVERSITY. From the surf, where mermen sing, Cupid comes, all-armed, a- wing, Flying o'er the classic green, Where the Sophomore is seen Blowing smoke-wreaths light as air In the heavy eyes of Care ; Where sweet bachelors of science By their converse bid defiance To that Godhead hovering o'er Whom the lover doth adore. I/o, the Blind God purposeth, With his bow and balmy breath, To o'erthrow the classics true Through the amorous rule of two ; (Yet to do his enmity With the wings of courtesy). Purposeth to move each youth With a strange mysterious ruth, Kill his sleep and fill his eye With a lover's fantasy ; Haunt the grove with lovers' eyes Ivit to grief by pale fire-flies ; Make each lovely bachelor sigh For the bachelor of her eye : Purposeth to do each deed On which amorous poets feed. Nor a lover of delay Straight he takes the instant way. 55 — O ye Muses nine that mount Guard o'er fancy's classic fount, And ye patron spirits of science, Quickly meet in firm alliance And transform this perjured God, By the virtue of thy rod, To a rose on weeping brier Blushing deep as painted fire, Or to drops of morning dew Trembling guiltily through and through. Lo, a Summer's day entranced, 'Neath a Merlin oak, deep-branched, One, a Junior of thy halls, Readeth of dim waterfalls Where o'er all and woven through Faery land's most mystic hue Runneth to love's purple lights, Linking youth to fresh delights : Readeth of that golden morn When the God of Love was born : Readeth of that golden eve When the God of Love did leave The first poet and lover sweet With the champak at his feet. — O revenge has drank deep Of Lethe, whose waters steep Thee in all forge tfulness, Or this sight would be distress Past endurance. But, O see ! Who can span thy misery ? — Here 's a virgin sick to death With the ruth of Cupid's breath, While Hypatia 's all forgot For the cup of Juliet's lot. Fancy hath no sweeter child Than yon youth with forehead mild : He can see the stars at noon ; By the light of yon pale moon He hath read sweet Nature's book Opening at a running brook. But, alas ! that book is closed Where his eyes so long reposed For a maiden's curl a-gold Has left Nature's volume cold. O, ye Helicon, make moan For the Blind God 's on thy throne : Science, Science, tremble through, Love, to youth, is all that 's true. — Day and night and night and day Love is finding out a way : When to do some daring feat Sophomores and Freshmen meet, Breaking forth in classic cry Startling midnight stealing by, Love is weaving memory's charms — (In the midst of stern alarms). When the owl in mist is lapped And the Senior's heart is wrapped In deep philosophic gloom, Love is trembling into bloom. 57 When the Venus of the sky Streams from heaven gloriously, And sweet Dian bathes her side Where the rushes cleave the tide With the starlight on their blade, Love 's about his snares well-laid. In the first bright pearl of day Of the sapphire crowned mid-May Love is tilting without ruth 'Gainst the citadel of youth. When the campus dust is laid And the leathern ball is bayed, — (Now the gods, at festal mirth, Ask what triumph is on earth) And victorious curls are shook Which to tender maidens look Like the Nemean lion's mane When the thunders 'gin complain, Love assails each citadel Built where virgin breasts out-swell. Yea, from January's snows, When god Zephyr rudely blows, Till the world is turned to gold And the Indian mists unfold, Love is pledged in dewy wine, Love triumphant and divine. 