



Produced by Chuck Greif, Mary Glenn Krause, MFR, University
of South Carolina and the Online Distributed Proofreading
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                                VERSES.

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                                VERSES.


           “_Be friendly, pray, to these fancies of mine._”

                          --BETTINE BRENTANO.

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               NEWPORT, R. I., C. E. HAMMETT, JR., 1878.

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      Sonnets.


    I. LE VIOL D’AMOUR.

     (An Organ-stop.)

    O soft, caressing sound, more sweet than scent
    Of violets in woody hollows! Tone
    As amorous as the ring-dove’s tender moan
    Beneath the spreading forest’s leafy tent;
    What mystery of earth or air hath lent
    Thee that bewitching music, where the drone
    Of Summer bees in dewy buds new blown
    With trembling, fainting melody is blent?
    What master did conceive thee, as the sound
    Most fit to woo his lady from her rest,
    What wakeful maiden in thy wooing found
    The passion of her lover first exprest,
    And from her silken pillows, beauty-crowned,
    Stept forth and smiled on him who loved her best?

                _November 10th, 1875._

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      II. VESPERS.

    It is the vesper hour, and in yon aisle
    Where fainting incense clouds the heavy air
    My lady’s kneeling at her evening prayer,
    Alone and silently; for in a file
    The choristers have passed, and left her there,
    Where martyrs from the tinted windows stare,
    And saints look downward with a holy smile
    Upon her meek devotions, while the day
    Fades slowly, and a tender amber light
    From  panes about her head doth play--
    Her veil falls like a shade, and ghostly white
    Her clasped hands glimmer through the deepening gray;
    So will she kneel, until from Heaven’s height
    The Angels bend to hear their sister pray.

                _November 11th, 1875._

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      III. BETTINE TO GOETHE.

     “Be friendly, pray, with these fancies of mine.” BETTINE.

    Could youth discrown thy head of its gray hair,
    I could not love it as I love it now;
    Could one grand line be smoothed from thy brow,
    ’Twould seem to me less stately and less fair.
    O no, be as thou art! For thou dost wear
    The signs of noble age that cannot bow
    Thine intellect like thy form, and I who know
    How each year that did visibly impair
    Thy first fresh youth, left inwardly such grand
    And gracious gifts, would rather have thee so--
    Believe me, master, who erect doth stand
    In soul and purpose, age cannot lay low
    Till he receive, new from the Father’s hand
    The youth he did but outwardly forego.

                _April, 1876._

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      Spring Song.

     “O primavera! Gioventù dell’ anno.”


    The first warm buds that break their covers,
      The first young twigs that burst in green,
    The first blade that the sun discovers,
      Starting the loosened earth between.

    The pale soft sky, so clear and tender,
      With little clouds that break and fly;
    The crocus, earliest pretender
      To the low breezes passing by;

    The chirp and twitter of brown builders,
      A couple in a tree, at least;
    The watchful wisdom of the elders
      For callow younglings in the nest;

    The flush of branches with fair blossoms,
      The deepening of the faint green boughs,
    As leaf by leaf the crown grows fuller
      That binds the young Spring’s rosy brows;

    New promise every day of sweetness,
      The next bright dawn is sure to bring;
    Slow breaking into green completeness,
      Fresh rapture of the early Spring!

                _May, 1876._




      Prophecies of Summer.


    I found a wee leaf in the cleft
    Where the half-melted ice had left
    A sunny corner, moist and warm,
    For it to bud, beyond all harm.
          The wet, brown sod,
    Long horned with ice, had slowly grown
    So soft, the tender seedling blown
    By Autumn winds, in earliest Spring
    Sent through the sun-warmed covering,
          Its little leaf to God.

    I found it there, beneath a ledge,
    The dawning Spring time’s fairest pledge,
    And to my mind it dimly brought
    The sudden, joyous, leafy thought
          Of Summer-time.
    I plucked it from the sheltered